


House of the Lost

by SlimDeedee (DeedeeWrites)



Category: One Piece
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Nakamaship, Romance, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 18:23:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 23
Words: 41,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23745331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeedeeWrites/pseuds/SlimDeedee
Summary: Marco the Phoenix doesn’t often ponder about his own mortality, but 6 months into the hellhole that has been his captivity, he’s understanding suicide in ways he never wanted to.orGiant children aren't the only experiment in progress Luffy and the crew find in Punk Hazard.
Relationships: Fushichou Marco | Phoenix Marco & Monkey D. Luffy, Fushichou Marco | Phoenix Marco/Monkey D. Luffy
Comments: 272
Kudos: 398





	1. Found

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably not going to have regular updates, I might update 2 or 3 times a week and I might not update in a month. This pseud is hard for me to tap into, and it generally waits for the mood to strike. 
> 
> I am drawing inspiration for this story from Unspoken Rule by JuHuaTai which bit me with the bug of a post-torture Marco that hasn't allowed me peace until I put it to paper, though HOL is significantly less sexual in nature.
> 
> Anyways, thanks for giving it a try and please recommend me any other tags you find suitable as warning.

He finds him, 4 days’ shy from Marco being captured for the seventh month. Marco sees him come into the room, and gape at his figure and Marco doesn’t think he’s real. He hasn’t seen a face since he was first locked up in here, only black masks and rubber gloves and pain.  _ Humiliating pain. _ Something in Marco gives out, it’s like he’s shutting down, done.

“Oi!” The arrival yells as he rushes forward. Marco cannot contain the involuntary flinch because every time someone’s been close something  _ hurts _ and Marco  _ does not heal _ and  _ please… _ The other picks up on his fright and slows down, coming to a halt three feet away. He raises his hands in a helpless gesture and pursues his lips, his expression is soft. “Hey.” He tries again. Marco doesn’t acknowledge him, his mind is spinning, and he doesn’t think the other is real. Even if he is, Marco’s previous flinch is sending raw agony down his spine, the burning electricity freezes at his waist. Marco hasn’t felt his legs in months. (Sometimes during the night, when it’s too dark to see, Marco screams because he cannot remember if they’re really there or if maybe they’re long gone.) “Hey.” The stranger repeats and Marco thinks he can hear him walking forward.

The younger man approaches slowly, and Marco cannot see him, but he picks up on his presence hazily, right until a pair of arms wraps around him and Marco’s breath shoots up the roof because  _ nononono, _ but the arms are steady as they raise his figure and unhook him from the ceiling from where Marco hangs from chains from the ceiling. He’s felt the progressive gapes forming in between his joints, they’d gone dormant some time ago but now the pins and needles overwhelm him, his body  _ shrieks  _ in hopeless protest as everything  _ moves _ . Marco lets out a hoarse cry of horror and the stranger startles, but mercifully does not drop him. Instead, he whispers sweet nothings into Marco’s ear, breath warm and soft, lifting a man taller than he is, as if Marco weighted nothing… Maybe he does.

(When was the last time he ate?)

He’s carefully brought down onto the cold floor by strong arms, but it does nothing to avoid upsetting Marco’s broken back. It sounds like broken shards of glass in a bag, like Marco’s nothing but an old container used beyond repair and holding nothing but broken splinters from a forgotten artifact. Everything feels  _ wrong _ and it prods and shuffles around his insides, burning a trail of panic and pain. It’s agonizing, and Marco’s so used to the tears by now that he doesn’t realize he’s crying until someone’s washing away his tears. His head is spinning and the pain coming from his back might just actually kill him and Marco tries to remember, he really tries to remember why he’s been holding on so long and why dying was supposed to be a bad idea.

He almost can’t quite bring himself to think about Pops and home because maybe he just imagined them, too good to be true…

“I’m going to get you a doctor.” Marco doesn’t want more doctors.

“Please,” his voice is threadbare thin from endless screaming, desperate in ways he would’ve never thought possible. “Please,” his voice breaks as he begs. He cannot even begin to care because he’s been taken apart and put together too many times now, too many. Marco doesn’t think his ability will help him next time, maybe it never has, maybe… “No more, no more doctors,  _ please. _ ”

He’s desperate enough to look for the stranger’s face trying to will him, to make him  _ understand. _ The other gasps when Marco’s eyes focus on him, or rather on the straw hat he’s wearing. (Marco’s not ready to look at the face. What will he find there?) There’s blackness at the edges of his vision and he doesn’t see the hand reaching up to his face until it’s caressing his cheek, Marco feels cold fingers scratch gently at the caked dirt and grime stuck on his cheek, but the movement itself he barely catches… It crashes down on him as his skull throbs.  _ The eye, _ they’d taken the eye with them! ...Marco knows it’s not the only thing he’s missing.

At first he wants to shy away from the touch, but Marco realizes by the way the world is greying and focusing in an ever shrinking scope, that he’s dying. Something must’ve touched something important when the other man moved him or maybe he’d already been dying, it’s hard to keep track of his injuries when Marco is just one big ball of suffering, a toy that has been broken too many times.

“Oi.” The voice is more forceful this time, demanding of Marco, but the phoenix has nothing else to give, he can feel his eyes dropping and there’s some form of  _ relief  _ sinking into him. “Stop it,” the hand is insistent where it cups his cheek, “you can’t die here. You need a doctor.” The fear pulses through him, almost managing to wake him up,  _ no doctors. _ Marco shakily, impossibly, raises a bony hand. He can tell that it’s missing his pinky and his thumb, he’s missing both thumbs, chopped off from the beginning and then again and again and as many times as they thought it was necessary, they had to make  _ sure.. _ . He touches on his bare hip bone, flinching when the hand falls on top of the restraint and dirtied skin.  _ That’s right, _ he thinks, looking at the grey ceiling, feeling his soul slip from his body,  _ he’s naked. _ “Hey, hey!” (His captor isn’t very eloquent, Marco thinks idly, looking up at the metal-made ceiling.)

“Screw.” He whispers at the prompting, but Marco’s not sure he says it aloud. There’s confusion in his rescuer's face and it takes a moment for Marco to identify the emotion, it’s so long since he’s had to read an expression. He’s got a nice face. Both eyes and a mouth and a nose, Marco knows he’s rather handsome when he smiles.  _ Huh?  _ Black eyes are begging him for help and it takes Marco all his willpower to try and focus,  _ what was it..?  _ “Screw…” he recalls, “sea stone.” The other man looks down to where Marco painstakingly dragged his hand, that’s why he’s got no thumbs, so that he cannot unscrew the sea stone himself. The man clearly understands the concepts and he hisses when he touches the screw, but Marco completely  _ loses it  _ when he starts taking it out.

The Phoenix knows it’s impossible but he swears he can hear the grinding of sea stone as it uncorks itself out of him. He can _see it,_ _he can._ The hipbone fading to dust, cracking, bleeding, breaking. There’s a strong weight on his chest and Marco cannot stay still because it’s just too much, but he cannot move because that only makes it worse, he’s worried he’s going to bite down on his tongue… Actually, he could bite down on his tongue, people can die like that, and then there’s no more…

“No more, no more,  _ please. _ ” He pants and his unfocused eye catches a glimpse of the young man’s face. He’s crying. The other man is crying, big fat tears rolling down his cheeks and it’s unsightly, he’s angry red and snot runs down his face, dripping down his chin. Suddenly, something in him pulls and  _ Marco’s on fire _ and then he doesn’t remember anything at all.


	2. Delirium

Marco comes to himself slowly, drifting, and not really thinking as much as existing in a conscious manner, suspended in between (in between what, he wonders?). Then, he remembers, and there’s pain and there’s darkness and Marco can’t see, he can’t stand, he can’t fight back, he can’t…

“Hey! Hey! Are you okay?” The voice is young, too young, but it’s too dark and Marco  _ can’t see _ and he hits something and there’s something off with his legs, can he feel his legs? Does Marco have legs, weren’t they gone? They were  _ gone, gone, gone, _ like his eye and his fingers and hadn’t they gutted him too? Left him to bleed and watch as his  _ insides _ became  _ outsides, _ Marco’s stomach –as a doctor he knew it was his stomach, he knew because the shape and the color and… There’s light.

There’s  _ light. _

Hands reach to cover his eyes, but they’re not hands but  _ wings, _ but then they’re hands and there’s wetness on his cheeks and Marco’s eyes are  _ burning, _ but  _ there’s light _ and Marco needs to  _ see.  _ A gasp escapes from the other side of the room.

“Mystery Bird!” Marco looks across from him and he doesn’t recognize the young man looking at him warily, hand in the light switch. He’s in a room, there’s wood and not metal and there’s  _ warmth, _ it’s almost a little stifling, but so  _ warm.  _ There’s  _ light  _ and Marco cannot recognize the face, but the straw hat is burned into his memory (fire and loss), and his hand shoots for his hip and there’s nothing there, there’s no screw there… Marco’s warm and he’s just sitting there, lying on his rear and trying to make sense of this new reality that he does not understand.

Marco wants to say something, ask something, is he dreaming? Did he die? His throat feels like sandpaper, scratching, twisting, bending, his legs! Marco sees his bare toes and they’re there, all ten of them and he looks at his hands and there’s thumbs, all two of them and it’s been so long, he counts all his fingers twice just to be sure. There’s a glass in his vision and for one moment fear chills him to his core and Marco pushes himself back until his back collides with something, something slams next to him and Marco  _ screams.  _ He curls into himself, trying to protect, to hide. There’s nothing interesting in him, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing

“No more,  _ no more, _ please…” Marco just wants to be forgotten, the voice that answers his pleas is kind, and it takes him a minute to describe it as such. 

“It’s just a book, Mystery Bird, it fell because you hit the bookcase. See?” The straw hat is showing him the cover, holding it next to his head. Away from Marco, who’s pressing himself so hard against the bookcase that he can feel one of the shelves digging into his back because… (his back, his back, Marco can hear breaking glass and pins and needles are shooting down his spine and hadn’t they taken out that too? Hadn’t he seen the gleaming bone and the…) “–ry Bird?” The face is a little closer, but Marco isn’t, Marco’s not actually feeling any pain. He looks down and his… his legs are there, he can see them, he  _ used them. _

The young man shows him the glass before bringing it closer. Marco’s thirsty. 

“Chopper said to take small sips.” He says worriedly, but Marco’s shaking hands are taking the glass down and water splashes his chest and the feeling is startling and cool, but not painful and the water sinks into his empty stomach like a blessing and then, Marco’s curving over and it all comes back out, the acid burns as he vomits and his entire form is shaking in exertion.

His arms are shaking and the younger man’s quick reflexes are the only thing that keeps him from face-planting in his own sickness, a clear yellowish liquid. Marco’s leaning against something solid and warm and he can’t even muster the strength to do anything but shake. He feels something wet in his nape. He remembers, amidst the twisting, the grinding of sea stone and bone, a straw hat, a face, the man had been crying then, too.

“Where… am I?” Marco’s already so tired though, and he doesn’t get to hear the answer.

  
  
  



	3. Unspeakable

Some of the crew aren’t sure if the blue bird perched on their captain is truly a man. The fire on it, the color of sunflowers and azaleas is unmistakably mythical though; and all of them have been briefed on the identity of Marco the Phoenix. The former first mate to the strongest man in the world, a pirate worth 5 billion berries –who, according to rumor, has been missing for almost a year. When Luffy returns to the ship from whatever detour he’d taken after beating Caesar Clown, he’s carrying a blue chicken and he’s crying.

His crew has seen him cry before, Luffy wears his heart on his sleeve. He laughs when he’s happy and cries when he’s sad, he yells when he’s angry and is always quick to apologize. These tears are different. First of all, they’re silent, almost as if the pain is too deep, and Luffy's not even truly aware that he's weeping. Luffy’s carrying the bird with as much care as he’s ever wielded in his limbs, trying to forget how it felt to hold his brother’s cooling body in a war torn plaza. For a minute, as Marco choked and bled and screamed, Luffy thought he might’ve been too late. He thought he was going to hear the last of a life again: a desperate, delirious message that would haunt him for a long time.

Then the screw came out, and he’d been too surprised to move out of the way of the fire that blasted the darkened laboratory into an eerie blue for a moment. It was cool and ticklish to the touch. Where Pineapple Man had been, –for Luffy recognized his brother’s nakama, even bleeding and broken– there is now a bird. It’s a lot smaller than Luffy had seen in the war, but it made it easy to carry. He’s concerned that the bird is still dying, but as the flames dwindle away to reveal the bird, there is no blood. When Luffy picks him up, the creature doesn’t even stir. He heads for the Sunny.

“I need you to check this bird.” He says, strolling straight towards Chopper. “It was dying.” His nakama is a little surprised, and his brows furrowed in concern at Luffy, who’s not quite done washing away his tears. There’s no time for that, Luffy wants to make sure Marco is okay  _ now _ . Besides, he’s fine –his hurt is aching and tearing, but Luffy’s used to it. He never wants it to fade, losing Ace isn’t supposed to be easier, Luffy just needs to make sure it isn’t ever in vain. He looks at the bird, at Marco, and knows this is a part of that.

“Luffy, are you okay?”

“I need you to check him out here, I don’t think he’s going to react well to waking up in the infirmary.” The hollow pleading is ice in his veins, Luffy has seen this man toying with admirals and he’d been wrecked,  _ wrecked. _ Luffy’s seen pain, and he’s intimately related to torture –but this, what has been taking place in Punk Hazard… it makes him  _ fuckin sick _ and it takes all his willpower to stay still, to not squeeze Marco too tight.

_ Please, no more… no more doctors, please… _

No man should ever have to beg. No one. Ever. Ever.  _ Ever. _ And it’s like Luffy’s seeing something else or someone else, or maybe the injustices he’s seen are all hitting him at once, because he’s so  _ fucking angry _ and frustrated and he just needs to rip this goddamn place to fucking goddamn little pieces, because if there’s one thing he’s learned is that  _ not everyon _ e deserves to live…

“Luffy?” The doctor voices the question again, his small form seems to shrink away from Luffy’s gaze, but his eyes are concerned and curious. Luffy forcibly breathes out, relaxing his shoulders and rearranging Marco’s weight in his arms.

“Chopper.” Luffy sniffs, sitting down against the main mast and keeping Marco close to his chest. The Phoenix is deeply unconscious, but he’s very warm and Luffy almost wants to cover him whole and keep him like this. It’s strange, the absolute hollowness in his chest. It’s like he’s forgotten how to expand his lungs correctly, and he just… he can’t catch a rhythm –not really. He takes sporadic, small gulps of air. “Please, just…”

“Okay.” The little doctor nods, somehow understanding what his captain cannot put into words. Luffy can see Zoro off napping nearby, but he knows his first mate is awake. Nami’s at the helm with Franky and the rest of the crew are all over the ship. Luffy’s not sure how to explain what he’s seen, it’s not worth retelling really… The pain of torture… The pain of torture is unspeakable.

How do you explain the sinking realization that you can die any minute, and every second you don’t there’s unimaginable pain? That you’ll never feel as small or powerless as when you’re nothing but a whim, a maybe, fun for a minute. When Luffy was… when he was… At some point,  _ it didn’t matter _ where the boy's treasure was at all, it was all about making squirm.

Marco has  _ squirmed, _ and Luffy knows there can be no explaining what it’s like.

“Oh great, you found him,  _ shorororo! _ I was sure he’d die without receiving his usual care!” Caesar’s being carried on deck and Luffy goes very still. Law tries to catch his eyes, but Luffy’s glare is frozen on the scientist. This man kidnapped, experimented and manipulated little kids. Marco, Marco lying in his own blood and entrails, missing vital parts of him and  _ begging, _ begging the way no man should ever have to be  _ AND HOW FUCKING DARE HE. _ “He’s a unique specimen, but if you’ve removed the SCREW…” Luffy feels the head of the screw grinding against bone, as he'd desperately struggled to get a grip while it's slippery with blood and viscera. It'd made Luffy weak with every touch, killing Marco one agonizing moment at a time; desperation reigniting in his veins because not again,  _ not again, _ please,  _ please… _ “He’s perfect for it, you know? It doesn’t matter what you do, blue flames and then bam… you can start all over again, he’s the end goal, the ultimate Devil Fruit… if we could mimic the effects with SMILE well…”

Something in Luffy  _ snaps. _ He  _ looks _ at Caesar, who suddenly becomes aware of Luffy’s violent mood. Luffy feels like he’s going to explode, he feels like he’s on fire, like there’s something dark and ugly trying to rip its way out of him, because in that moment of clarity, only one thing holds his attention: Caesar needs to die.

_ No more, please… _

The wave of haki that leaves him is mostly unintentional and Caesar crumbles to his knees in one fell swoop. Looking up at him. Luffy wants to beat him up again, he wants to do it right this time; before he hadn’t been angry enough,  _ he hadn’t known, _ Luffy hadn’t  _ seen… _ Law is suddenly blocking his vision.

“Straw Hat-ya?” His tone is deceptively gentle, but his hand is on his sword and he seems a little breathless. “Is that bird what you’re trying to protect? You’re going to hurt it if you don’t get a grip.” It slaps Luffy across the face and he takes a couple of steps back. (When did he even stand up?) He holds Marco up a little tighter, almost burying his face in the soft feathers, how can he be so warm? “Are you good?” Law checks, still keeping his sword in his hands; behind him, Luffy can feel Zoro readying for a confrontation -to support him even if he has no idea what's going on. Luffy breathes, he has to. They need Caesar, for Law’s plan,  _ afterwards… _ That’s no good either. Luffy needs to breathe, he nods jerkily in response to Law’s question.

“Keep him under deck.” Luffy looks meaningfully at Marco, he’s probably going to flip out if he sees Caesar on-board.

“Straw Hat-ya…” Law ventures carefully. “…is that Whitebeard’s phoenix?”

“There’s no Whitebeard anymore.” Luffy whispers in response. Marineford had been a dark day for him, what had it been like for Marco? Luffy grits his teeth. “Keep him in the storage room on the belly of the ship, if I even  _ hear him… _ ” He looks meaningfully at Caesar, and he doesn’t really mean it. But then he pictures Marco’s mutilated hands, the red blood cascading down an empty eye socket and thinks he can definitely  _ mean it. _ “He’s dead. Plan or no plan.”

Law doesn’t look happy, but Luffy thinks the surgeon recognizes there is something lurking in this conversation that he’s missing and doesn’t agree nor disagree. If Luffy’s impression of the other man is accurate, he’s going to prod Luffy until his curiosity is satisfied. (But Luffy can be quite stubborn, and there’s things that should never be said out loud.)

“Is Tony-ya going to treat him?” Luffy nods.

“I can give him a check-up too.” He says. “If you want.” Luffy nods again. He trusts Chopper blindly, but two doctors are better than one. (And he’s trusted Traffy with his life too, hasn't he?)

“Don’t stay outside, too many people. A place that’s more comfortable.” There’s several places on the  _ Sunny _ that fit the bill, but the ones closest to deck are probably the best options. Behind his eyelids there’s Marco’s naked form, swaying from the chains. Torn apart, soiled and cut open again and again. He’d been terrified at Luffy’s appearance. Luffy had been terrified to see him alive. Again Luffy nods, Caesar doesn’t make any more comments and avoids Luffy’s gaze. It’s better like that, because Luffy suddenly wants to ask, he wants to know what they did to Marco. But that stupid scientist wouldn’t survive that conversation.

Luffy breathes again as he walks to the Observatory, hoping Marco’s going to wake up soon. It can get really lonely in someone’s head.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My eyes are literally blurring, I might have to go back and check the spelling. Thanks for the read.


	4. Missing

“Traffy.” Law tries not to sigh at the nickname, he turns around from looking out to the sunset, deciding to not waste his breath and letting Nami-ya call him whatever she wants. (It’s Straw Hat-ya’s fault anyways.) The navigator, dressed to impress in striped-pants and a bikini top, just ended her shift at the helm. Law has been feeling her stare throughout the afternoon, he vaguely wonders what she can possibly want to talk to him about. The woman leans on the railing, her gaze set out to sea. Law examines her tattoo briefly, a clinical curiosity from someone who's well-acquainted with the art. He entertains the notion that Nami-ya sees something in the water or the clouds that Law himself is blind too. (Probably.) “You know about that bird?” She’s frowning, clearly displeased. 

_ Ah, of course. _

Her mood is understandable. Law hasn’t seen Straw Hat-ya in two days, ever since the Phoenix reportedly woke up and "freaked out". It was hastily decided to reconstruct the captain’s cabin for their guest's use and Luffy had locked himself in there. Only showing his face when Sanji brought him in his ridiculous amounts of food or when Tony-ya came in to check on the patient. Law had been unable to help much because, as of the last time he’d seen him, they hadn't been able to turn Phoenix back into a man. The surgeon's understanding of a bird’s anatomy is so limited, it might as well be guesswork. Not that it was much of a loss. Law's not too proud to admit that after seeing it in action, Tony-ya's an incredibly capable doctor. (Though he wouldn’t wish Phoenix's case to anyone, that’s going to be a shit show).

“He’s not really a bird.” He reminds her, and Nami knows this much at least because she doesn’t look surprised. Now, what to say? “They call him Marco The Phoenix, he’s been a pirate from the times of when Gol D. Roger still sailed the seas. Whitebeard’s first mate." A terrifying man with an even more terrifying reputation, a paragon of an era. "He took over the captaincy of the crew after Marineford, but most of it ended going underground after the Payback War, which they lost." A fight that had shifted the power balance in the New World in irrevocable ways. Law isn't sure how to feel about Blackbeard, the guy seems like really bad news, but he has decided to stay off the man's way for now. No need to pick a fight with the unknown. "News of the remnants of the crew got quiet until a year ago, several of the Whitebeard Commanders were aggressively on the move.” Law gives Nami-ya a meaningful stare. “Rumor had it they were searching for someone.”

“Marco…” Nami-ya guesses, Law nods. 

“Whom we now know had been captured by Kaido in hopes of replicating his Devil Fruit abilities, and handed over to Caesar.” Law's fingers tighten around Kikoku’s sheath, the idea of being hunted for one's Devil Fruit hitting a little too close to home for him. 

“Is that why he’s a bird -I mean, a Phoenix?”

“While Zoans generally offer their users physically-enhancing abilities, and the Bird-Bird Fruit: Model Phoenix certainly does that, the mythical zoan grants Phoenix an even greater power." Though it still falls short from the immortality-bestowing Ope-Ope Fruit. "Instant and complete regeneration.” He remembers Phoenix clashing with Kizaru and later on with Akainu. “No matter the damage, he recuperates in flames.”

“Chopper said that when they checked him over, he didn’t have a single injury on him, not even a broken nail.” Her voice tells him she's just thinking out loud, but Law answers her anyway. 

“…I wouldn’t say he’s unharmed.” How could he be?

“Luffy hasn’t wanted to talk to anyone about where Marco was.” She accuses, as if she’s upset there’s something Law knows that she doesn’t. 

“I spoke with Ceasar.” He admits, if only to dispel the notion of Straw Hat-ya  _ confiding in him,  _ god forbid. Perhaps sharing this is a mistake, but he doubts it'll stay secret for long. “Phoenix has been at Punk Hazard around half a year, and he’s been kept restrained with sea stone for almost as long. They would only remove it when he was too close to dying. His body would heal itself and it’d go right back in.”

“Back in?” Nami asks, for the first time looking at Law and not the darkening horizon. Her gaze is innocent enough that Law feels almost bad for what he's about to tell her.

“They screwed the sea stone into him.” He explains, resisting the urge to clench his jaw. Law knows pain, but having sea stone drilled into a user sounds like... well, like torture. “The scientists were terrified Phoenix-ya would get free, and figured he’d be used to traditional methods of confinement. So, they’d filled him with sea stone-made screws and cut off his thumbs.” Nami lets out a soft-gasp, quickly looking away to hide her face. 

“Such a thing…” Nami’s eyes are downcast and a hand covers her mouth in horrified imagination. Law saves himself the rest of the details. Caesar had been unnecessarily graphic in his retelling, enough so that even Law’s stomach had churned at the treatment. (There really is no bottom to the cesspool of depravity that is the world.) The last time Law saw Marco he’d been tearing through the greatest battlefield the world had ever seen, dominating his opponents, a beacon of power and rebellion. If what Caesar said is true, Law wonders what remains of that man.

“He saved Straw-Hat-ya’s life.” He suddenly remembers, which could shed some light as to Luffy’s single-minded determination in taking care of him. “Got in between him and Akainu right after Fire-Fist died. I'm actually not sure if your captain knows. He was... indisposed at the time.”  _ More like catatonic. _

“Marco must’ve sailed with Ace…”  _ Well, obviously. _ Law stays silent though, people often repeat information out loud in order to process it and he’s given plenty of things for the navigator to process indeed.

“Is he going to be okay?”

“I… don’t know. But him staying inside that room, if he is even awake so far, is not a good sign.”

“Can we help?”  _ Help a stranger overcome possible PTSD and deep psychological trauma? _ Law thinks about the idiots that make up Straw-Hat-ya’s crew.  _ Doubtful, very doubtful. _ Once again, he doesn’t voice his thoughts out loud.

“Chopper is studying possible complications,” he shrugs noncommittally instead, “you should talk to him.” As disgusting as what happened to the Phoenix is, it’s none of Law’s business. He’s got enough demons of his own.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of an interlude but it came to me and there was no reason not to post. Been a bit of a rough day.


	5. Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: panic attack, grief, delusion, dissociation, graphic violence, torture.

When Marco awakens the next time things are different. He’s in a bed, in a bedroom, and he’s pretty sure he’s a man and not a bird.

This is not his ship. Why is Marco not on his ship?

“Mystery Bird?” The voice calling him is groggy but close, and Marco looks next to him where his sitting up in bed to stare at a man, messily sprawled next to him and eyeing him cautiously. “Marco?” That’s his name. Marco startles a little at it, as if its being awhile since he heard it. Where is he? The room is airy and light, even though it has now windows, there’s creamy wood in every surface and Marco knows this steady rocking means he’s at sea.

“…” He looks down at the stranger sharing his bed. Or is is the other way around, Marco invading the man’s space? He’s young, he notes, looking fit and and sharp in all the right ways. His posture holds fear, but the bow of his lips whisper of kindness. He sits up slowly, and the proximity makes Marco freeze. The man rubs at his eyes and when he’s up, he turns around and smiles at him.

“You’re awake,” the man cheers. Marco is indeed awake, but he doesn’t feel right. There’s something off, something _slow. _Marco’s missing something. Liquor has no prolonged effect on him, not without sea stone, _a chill travels down his spine at the thought _and something in him blazes and dies. Goosebumps rise along his arms. That’s new. Marco looks at his trembling palms. He’s not wearing sea stone, he’s not. Marco glares at his fingers, there’s something there, calling him.

“I am, yoi.” He’s puzzled by how raspy his throat feels, still fascinated with clenching and unclenching his hands -it feels like he’s never seen them before all of a sudden.

  
“How are you feeling?’ Marco finds the question odds. He notes that despite the fact that they’re in bed, both he and the younger man are fully cloth. Something in his chest tightens and Marco tries to breathe in more air, he feels a little choked right then for some reason. He twists his body, to look down at his companion better. Marco knows him, he’s sure.

The wild black hair.

The scar.

That grin.

Yellow picks over his shoulder.

A straw hat.

“Luffy,” the name rises unbidden to his lips, like a memory Marco’s forgotten. “Straw Hat Luffy.”

“Yeah? You’re okay, right?” The man presses, reacting to his name with familiarity. Marco knows him, Marco knows his name, Marco knows that straw hat. He saw it fall amongst corpses, he couldn’t reach it. Marco hadn’t had even the opportunity to _try _and recuperate it, just one more thing lost. His back suddenly aches, the pain hits him like a train, with no buildup. One moment he’s fine and the next there’s a hand grasping at his spin, it’s awkward but Marco cannot _breath. _Broken glass echoes in his ears, a scream pierces the air and it makes Marco flinch.

Luffy, (Luffy?), grabs on to his hands and tries desperately to meet Marco’s gaze.

“Marco, Marco, you’re safe.” He tells him, his voice is soft and strong and kind and as the pain abates, Marco almost believes him. “You’re in the _Thousand Sunny, _you’ve been a couple of days now but you were sleeping. It’s over.”

What’s over?

…The war?

There was a war… right?

“Ace!’ He jumps out of the bed. Ace was going to be executed, his heart is ramming itself into his ribcage and Marco can feel his adrenaline-filled pulse slamming into him like a jackhammer, what is Marco doing in bed with a man when there is… Luffy. Straw Hat Luffy. Marco stops his flurry of movement, where he’s been teasing the clothes his wearing, a blue kimono that’s just a little too short on him.

Luffy is Ace’s little brother, that’s how Marco knows him. Luffy’s still sitting on the bed, frowning and following Marco’s journey through the room. It’s not spacious, but it’s warm. A bed, a nigh-stand, a desk and a closet. No more nor less than what’d you’d need at sea. It’s got a night lamp next to the bed and the curtains are a deep, bright red -almost the same shade as Luffy’s shirt.

Now that Marco sees him from another angle, he notices

“…Marco?”

“Where is Ace?” Marco’s eyes fall on Luffy’s scar, a deep group shaped like an X as if something had been carved out of him. _Marco had thought Akainu had killed them both. _Luffy murmurs something to himself, it almost sound like _tact, tact and delicacy. _The mutterings don’t seemed aimed for Marco but they’ve would’ve passed over him inertly, because that constricting feeling that had been expanding before is back with vengeance and it claims all of Marco’s focus because he can _see it._

Luffy shakes his head minutely, almost reluctantly and the world comes to a stop.

He can _hear _Luffy’s screams as he bleeds and smolders and Ace _dies._

_Ace dies._

Marco remembers magma hot enough to brand and to burn everything and anything. A power of such inherent destruction that Admiral ‘Mad Dog’ Sakazuki is essentially destined to forever be at odds with a creature of song and healing like Marco ‘The Phoenix’. There are too many things Marco’s fire cannot restore though and there is no end to what Akainu has destroyed, no ameliorating what he has obliterated already.

There’s something building inside Marco, some ghost he knows, something ugly and ominous. Marco feels its encroaching hold on him and it pulls him down, down, down, down he goes into perdition. His back aches, violent and mercilles, and without warning, Marco’s on the floor. He tries to hold onto himself, because he feels like he’s splitting apart, diced up and classified piece by piece, bursting messily at the seems.

He has the vivid image of his organs slipping out of him. Marco will never forget the splashing sounds his entrails made as they sullied the clean, metal floors, they seemed to fall forever. (He’d known, detachedly, that intestines were meters and meters long; Marco hadn’t been prepared to witness it firsthand.) He can almost feel how empty, _gaping _he’d felt. Marco goes green at the gills, nauseous in a way sickness will never make him.

Luffy’s at his side in a moment, his movements slow and gentle and Marco remembers a hand he didn’t, _couldn’t _see coming wiping away his tears, it only solidifies what his mind is unraveling. A picture of gory snapshots Marco doesn’t want to believe he truly owns. He’s looking at his palms, they are unfocused, but Marco can barely see through the tears (when did he start crying?), he counts his fingers regardless. There’s ten. He counts again. There’s ten. He counts _again. _There’s _ten. _It doesn’t _prove anything,_ because Marco knows they’d grow back, they _would,_ they had grown back over and over and _over again _and they had_ loved it. Loved how many times Marco could be disassembled and crippled, _driven further beyond the inhumane limits of exhaustion and hunger and pain even in flames.

For a moment, flames are all he can see blue blue blue blue, electric blue and golden and flight there’s wind on his skin and there’s power electrifying him, feeding him, Marco explodes and drags all enemies of Pops to their knees. He’s not afraid to make them beg, because this is Marco’s _family, _and Marco’s not going to be alone again. _He isn’t._

There’s something in the thought that cuts deep into him and Marco bites his lip, hard enough that it tingles in a way where Marco knows he’s Devil Fruit has become active. He can’t stop though, his teeth sink viciously into the tender flesh and the blood is cold and wet where it drips down his chin. When Marco sees the drops fall in between him and Luffy, whose hols on Marco’s hand tightens uncomfortably it brings back the sounds of bleeding for days on end. His eye, Marco thinks fuzzily, his eye had dripped and dripped and dripped and left all his face cracked and peeling from the rust.

Marco feels dirty.

But he can’t ask, Marco doesn’t want to ask, he sinks into himself, trying to keep his misery inside, in whatever corner he’s been hiding because he knows that it’s not Marineford that’s over, just the lab, just the lab. Marineford was over a long time ago, Marco knows. He was there, Luffy was there, _screaming because Ace, Marco’s little brother had burned, burned in all the wrong manners._

Marco’s lips betray him, and he looks up from his palms to Luffy’s grim face.

“…Pops?” He chokes out, desperate for a clear path to follow, for a home to return to.

Luffy’s eyes, teary with sorrow and apologies and pain, are surely mirroring Marco’s own. For a moment, there’s only the sound of rushing blood on his ears, Marco’s vision goes white. Then there’s Luffy, words mouthing words that Marco cannot hear through the utter destruction of reality as he’d known it.

The world breaks.

Marco _explodes, _his flames are everywhere, slithering along his skin, dancing around Luffy, climbing the ceiling and Marco stands and wobbles and slams into the dresser and he grabs on to the strands of hair and pulls and pulls because _something has to give._

“Marco!” Luffy’s hands are on his wrists, trying to keep Marco from tearing out tufts of blonde hair and the pain is not foreign, Marco who can take all injuries is well-used to pain. He’s slammed against the dresser, it rattles threateningly as all of Marco’s lung lose air at once and he’s left desperate and gasping. Marco’s dying, he’s sure he’s dying and as he collapses in a meltdown of coughing and a _need to breathe, _things slow down again. Luffy’s let go of him as soon as Marco collided against the wardrobe, and now he stands over him looking immeasurably guilty.

“Shit.” Luffy mutters and Marco recoils. The younger man flinches but comes closer, even when Marco’s instincts have him cowering back against the furniture. Luffy lowers himself, and in soft, easy movement curls himself around Marco’s legs. His head rests on Marco’s knee and the rest of him is flushed against Marco’s thigh, knees bent back and brushing the dresser behind Marco. He’s almost unbearable hot. Marco finally manages to take air into his lungs and there’s still salty wetness into his lungs. Luffy doesn’t touch him beyond laying half on top of him and he doesn’t say anything, he just rests his head on Marco’s knee and stares. It’s a little disconcerting. “Sometimes, I forget too.” He whispers. “You’re okay, Marco, you’re safe here.”

The word doesn’t stop being tilted.

“I was… I was in a lab.”

“You were in Punk Hazard.” Marco remembers the cold, he remembers the unbearable heat in the cabin of the ship where he’d been captured and the way the freezing winds had cut his face when he’d arrived to the island.

“How long?”

“Half a year, but… but you were somewhere before, right?” The question is asked softly, hesitantly. Marco thinks it doesn’t suit Luffy at all.

“I had been… I had been in Pop’s homeland, taking care of the villagers.” He tries not to think what might’ve happened to them. “Kaido came for me.”

“Kaido?” Luffy repeats, and there’s something skulking in his eyes that makes Marco a little wary.

“He wanted my Devil Fruit, he was going to burn the village to the ground.” Marco looks up to the ceiling but there’s no hiding his tears. “I couldn’t have protected them all.”

“I’m sure you did.” The conviction is so innocent it startles Marco. There’s no way Luffy knows that, but Marco desperately hopes so. “How are you feeling?”

The question catches him off guard and the older pirate doesn’t know what to say. In pain? Marco has no injuries. Grief? He’s known Ace and Pops were dead since a long time ago, and that reality has come back to him now that the fog from before lifted. Shock? Probably, but Marco doesn’t think he’s out of that yet. The last time he was coherent was in the lab, though all the images blur together into one big knot of suffering and darkness. Suddenly, he’s with Straw Hat Luffy in bed. There’s a step there, Marco clearly missed something important.

“I’m not sure.” He says. “Numb?”

“Okay.” Luffy doesn’t say anymore, if anything he seems to get more comfortable as if settling in to wait. His gaze is intense, and it doesn’t leave Marco for a second. They stay like that for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter is dedicated to Lily_Amazon whose review was so inspiring that it fueled me on to whip this up for you. 
> 
> I'm super excited to announce that I'm on [twitter](https://twitter.com/Slim_Deedee_) and on [tumblr](https://deedee-writes.tumblr.com). You can follow me for teasers and snippets of upcoming work, particularly House of the Lost. I also do fic reccs and reviews, original poetry, and general fangirling. I'd love to connect with you there <3 (cheesy but true).
> 
> Also, I think I'm finally seeing where this is going so yay. 
> 
> Thanks for reading.


	6. Panic

He's in the bath when it happens. It's early, early enough that Luffy's still snoring away, and Marco had only heard Sanji's soft footsteps in the kitchen as he made his way to the bath. The ship is dead silent, and it makes Marco uneasy. Then again, when it is rowdy, it makes him anxious as well. There's not a lot that  _ doesn't _ put Marco on edge these days anyways. 

The Sunny is somewhat comforting, bright, and warm and filled with people where Marco's confinement had been cold and clammy and clinical and...  _ Breathe.  _

Marco has his space, which is something he feels regularly guilty about, but Chopper reminds him in their daily chats that  _ Luffy owns this ship, and he can do whatever he wants with it _ –including giving Marco his own room. (There are other reasons like his comfort and his health, and he deserves some form of special treatment after what he's been through until he gets better, but those always sound hollow. Mainly because if Marco's Devil Fruit hasn't healed him, can he even  _ be  _ fixed?)

He's been in the  _ Sunny Go  _ a couple of weeks now, and it seems like it's been ages, but Punk Hazard is never far, neither from his thoughts nor his heart. Marco doesn't think it ever will, and he knows, he knows  _ he  _ is still on board. 

Marco doesn't always feel like his soul is trying to flay off his skin, not always electrified in frightening memories, blurred between a nightmare and reality, present and past. One day, Nami had taught him how to take care of her tangerine trees, she'd been rather tough on him too, keeping a careful eye on Marco's hands as they took care of the weeds. Then she'd given him two,  _ free of charge for his help.  _ (He'd been on the  _ Sunny  _ long enough to know what a gesture it was, coming from the stingy navigator.) 

The sun had been blinding, only an hour after lunch had most of  _ Sunny's  _ occupants dozing and dazed from another one of Sanji's impeccable meals. Marco had to apologize to his brother, but the Straw Hat's cook is something else. Nami had been wearing a hat, and Marco had helped her put sunblock on. 

"You should put on some too," she'd told him. She looked like she was going to the beach more than a pirate, in some gardening gloves, a bright red bucket hat, and a string bikini. 

"I don't burn," he replied. Nami pursued her lips.

"Doesn't matter."

"What, but-" His protests fell on deaf ears. The woman maneuvered him into removing his shirt, and in moments her soft palms were spreading the sticky liquid all over his back. Marco had never been a fan of anything going on his skin, and it'd been decades since he'd put creams on. He didn't need them. 

He tenses up under Nami's touch, unused to such a caress, but he thinks that's probably the point when Nami doesn't say anything. She's careful and detailed as she covers his shoulders and then, moves in front of him to continue on his front, smearing the tattoo in white briefly before evening it out on the skin. 

"Do you always force sunblock on your guests, yoi?" He doesn't want to sound rude, but the moment is feeling a little too raw for him right then, and he doesn't understand why someone putting sunblock on him is making him so off-balanced. 

"I put sunblock on everyone in this crew."

"I'm not part of this crew, though." Nami huffs a breath, her movement momentarily more forceful as she reaches down for Marco's belly button. Marco believes she's done this hundred of times, if only for how effective she is at doing it. Gesturing for him to raise his arms away from his body, giving her further access. 

"You're still Nakama."

"You barely know me," he protests. Marco's unsure of what he's trying to convince her of. 

"That's how it was with everyone when they got here." She dismisses, "now come on, my trees don't take care of themselves." She continues to talk to him as the two of them water and prune them into perfection.

"I've never taken care of a plant before," he warns.

"You look relatively responsible and sensible, and that already offers you an advantage over most of this crew. The only other people here who know how to do it are Robin and Usopp. I like the idea of you knowing too, in case I'm ever far from  _ Sunny  _ too long." She shrugs. "Besides, not knowing how to do something is just all the more reason to learn."

It's not like there's a ton for Marco to do anyways. 

"Okay, yoi." She looks at him as if gauging if Marco's really up for it before nodding satisfactorily. The older man isn't sure what she sees, considering he feels pretty indifferent about the whole endeavor, but it seems to be enough. 

It turned out a dirty, demanding, and very relaxing task. 

"Usopp thought I was crazy for taking trees out to see with me, and now he has his own garden," she confided, as the sniper in question joined them.

"I mean, the Merry wasn't as plant-friendly as the Sunny, though she did take good care of your tangerine trees," the man mutters, putting on his own gloves. "I still cannot believe they've made it all the way here from the East Blue." That does perk Marco's interest.

"They come from East Blue?" Nami seems surprised at the question, maybe because Marco rarely speaks without being spoken to. 

"They're from an orchard that belonged to my mother, I took them with me when I left with Luffy." Marco looks at the trees, deceptively resilient plants, these ones. 

"They really are!" Ussop agrees, and Marco realizes he must've spoken out loud.

"Naturally," Nami boasts, "I've been taking care of them!" Amusement blooms in Marco's chest. 

He's helped Nami with her trees regularly since then, and it has organically expanded to Usopp's little garden as well.

"Don't let her take advantage of you," the sniper had joked, "Nami's too good at people working for free!"

"Did you say something, Usopp?" The lilt to her voice is dangerous as it drifts from the other side of the little forest, and Usopp swallows. His eyes are smiling as they meet Marco, a  _ what can you do, right?  _ written in his brow. "We need to get you some gloves, now that you're part of the gardening squad."

"My hands don't really need it," he explained.

"Not the point," Usopp replied.

Marco decides he will check on the garden after his shower, he does have new gloves to put to use now. 

The bathroom is stifling when he goes in, and Marco gives the empty place a cursory thought, his eyes rest briefly on the bathtub. Marco used to love baths  _ before, _ but now he couldn't even  _ think  _ of the feeling of weakness, of his strength being sapped away and being unable to move. He's incapable of subjecting himself to the mercy of his greatest weakness. (It's impossible, but his hip bone throbs). Marco starts feeling faint.

The episode comes out of nowhere.

One second Marco's taking off the white sweatshirt he wore to bed and putting his toiletries nearby and the next, there's all-consuming panic, splitting him apart. It's like there are two sides to him.

One side takes into account his labored breathing, and the blackness creeping into his vision, processes how the world goes out of focus and how cold sweat breaks out all over Marco's skin and thinks.  _ It's a panic attack. You're not really suffocating, this is mental first and then physical. Hold your breath. Count backward from a thousand. Find 5 things you can see, four that you can see, three that you can… _

Scores of advice to help himself cross his mind, and Marco tries, he really does, but his breathing doesn't ease, and his vision starts swimming. Marco's swaying, he thinks, maybe?

While one part of his mind is narrating the events and word-vomiting every panic attack-related fact Marco's ever read, there's another, more prominent side of him in charge.

That Marco has only one coherent thought:

_ I'm dying. _

The spacious bathroom shrinks into him, swallowing him, but at the same time, Marco feels lost in the middle of nowhere. There's screaming inside his mind and the cold, cold emptiness that Marco's never going to be able to forget. He twists open the doorknob, thinking of Luffy and his bed and thinks that maybe if he makes it there, it'll be okay. 

Maybe if he just, if he can't make it to…

But there are no legs to support him, none, trapped in the dark, splintered beyond recognition, there's nowhere for Marco to run. 

.

.

.

It's pain that wakes him up, sharp like a blade. It only lasts a couple of seconds, but it's enough to wake him up. There's warm wood in front of him, firm underneath him as the flame subsides, the wetness on his forehead gone in the cool caress of his ability. There's a terrifying second where Marco isn't sure what happened.

"-rco! Marco!" A person is sliding next to him, turning Marco around facing up and not buried into the floor.  _ I must have blacked out,  _ he realizes. Marco's never had a panic attack before, but working himself up enough to pass out it's a bad thing.  _ Reflex syncope.  _ Marco takes a hand to his head, he's sure he'd been bleeding, but of course, nothing's left. Cold settles inside him. Of course, his injury is gone, of course, it is. That's what Marco does, isn't it? Heal? Rise from the ashes like a Phoenix?

(What a rotten joke.)

He's exhausted and sweaty, and his heartbeat is speeding up again. Someone grabs his hand, roughly and with intent. They are smaller than his own, incredibly rough, and they pull with such insistence that Marco starts resurfacing slowly. "Marco, is everything okay? You passed out. You're safe, on the Sunny. Remember?" Marco was going to shower. 

"I… I think I had a panic attack." He says it out loud because Marco can hardly believe it's real. He starts sitting up, finally bringing a tanned face into view. Ussop's expression is lined with worry, but his posture is open and kind. He doesn't push Marco and doesn't speak beyond his assurances of safety. Later, he'd appreciate his quiet support and lack of prodding significantly more than right then. Right now, there's little he can focus on other than trying to take even breaths. 

Luffy is still snoring away when they make their way to Marco's room, but he blinks awake when they enter. He frowns but doesn't ask. Marco climbs back in bed as Ussop leaves in search of Chopper. The younger man turns to Marco, careful to not crowd him and stretches one hand to rest on Marco's stomach. There, soft circles brand themselves into his skin, and Marco cries. It hits him all at once.

He's terrified of feeling like that again.

"I can't go back," he whispers to a scarred chest, "I can't, Luffy, I can't.  _ I can't go back." _

"You're not going anywhere," the younger man promises. Marco wishes he could believe him. 

He doesn't leave the room for days, and there's no checking up on the garden. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does this feel less depressing than usual somehow? I really liked this chapter for some reason. 
> 
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Slim_Deedee_)   
[Tumblr](https://deedee-writes.tumblr.com/)


	7. Haven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last time, 
> 
> Marco reminisces briefly on his newfound hobby of gardening, moments before suffering a panic attack at the bath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short celebratory chapter because I've written the ending for this already yay

"Luffy," the younger man is settled on top of Marco, pressing down on him as the pair of them nap the day away. Marco knows Luffy would rather be outside, Brook had accidentally let it slip once that the lion-themed figurehead had been Luffy's designated napping spot. Nowadays, it's wherever Marco is, which, more often than not, is their shared bedroom. "There's something you should know." Luffy rouses from his stupor, his warm breath on Marco's chest, but he doesn't press, letting Marco share what's on his mind at his own pace. Maybe the heat's made him doozy, and he's not actually paying him any mind. The phoenix has thought long and hard on whether to tell Luffy this, but in the end, he owes it to him to know. "I've met Kin'emon before." Which isn't a problem, except " _ 26 years ago. _ He hasn't changed  _ at all. _ Momonosuke isn't his kid, he was actually born on the  _ Moby.  _ His father was the first Second Division commander, before Ace, a man named Kozuki Oden."

"What, really? Momonosuke's dad was?" Luffy jumps on the bed, digging a knee on Marco's stomach momentaneously before settling on his haunches. As always, animated by any mentions of Ace. 

"Yes, but what I mean is, there's something they're not telling us."

"Yeah, I know," Luffy shrugs, dismissing a close ally's lies without any thought. "Kin'emon told me you guys knew each other."

"He… did?" The samurai had kept a respectful distance from Marco, and other than shushing Momonosuke's reaction to him, Marco could've sworn he was pretending he didn't know the phoenix.

"Uh-hum," Luffy confirms, leaving Marco a little lost, "he said there is stuff about Wano that he can't tell us yet and that if I was okay with him holding out a little longer on us."

"What did you tell him?"

"That I'm going to kick Kaidou's ass no matter what he says." (Sounds like him, yeah.) Marco takes in the honest sincerity and the dauntless drive. Takes in the wild, coarse locks of raven hair, and the wide eyes. Luffy always looks mildly surprised, as if every day brings with it a new wonder. So different from when Marco saw him last, alone in Rusukaina, holding himself together by an abstract promise. Marco doesn't know what Jinbei told him back then, he hadn't asked, but… It must've been remarkable because it somehow glued all the little pieces of Luffy together. The younger pirate reaches for his hand, almost absent-minded in the gesture. "Kin'emon's a good guy, Momonosuke too, even if he's a crybaby. It's going to be okay. We'll help them as soon as we're done with Mingo."

What happens next is a long-time coming.

Marco kisses Luffy because he wants Luffy to drop him like he's broken, wary of cutting himself up in all the glinting pieces that may have once had a name.

Marco kisses Luffy because neither pills nor drinking have any effect on him, but  _ fuck  _ how he wishes they did. Once, back in the  _ Moby,  _ Marco had a single thin bracelet made of sea stone, a prank gift Thatch made him for Marco to get drunk. The thought of the coldness can effortlessly bring Marco to tears -that's not an option anymore.

Marco kisses Luffy because he can't sleep.

Marco kisses Luffy because he thinks and thinks and thinks and thinks and thinks and Marco doesn't want to  _ think  _ anymore. (Which is what he tells himself instead of how he doesn't want to  _ live  _ anymore.)

Marco kisses Luffy for all the wrong reasons, but he doesn't stop. He can't stop because Marco's cold, cold, cold, and Luffy's inexplicably warm. The touch is delirious and from behind Marco's eyes comes the first time these hands laid on him –with shattered legs and a broken back and Marco bites down on rubber skin because fuck fuck fuck fuck.

-No, there had been a before... hadn't it?

(A testament to a search for comfort that had ended in whispered misgivings and wandering hands. Of seeing too much of a person, their heart, and their loss. The sounds they made in the throes of oblivion. 

Marco's greedy fingers were guilty, guilty, guilty, and he'd promised himself Rusukaina was a mistake. Told himself, he's more than a creature of hunger and lust, that he can handle his pain with grace and dignity and maturity and not aimlessly in a body he has no right to. He dreamt that's not who he is -at least not anymore, but.. he's here now. 

Again.

Besmirching. Poisoning.  _ Taking.) _

Luffy lets him.

Luffy lets him grab on desperately as if he's the only solid, stable thing for miles. Let's Marco curl into him and swallows all of Marco's whimpers, caresses his bruising lips, and gives back gentleness and softness for all of Marco's sharp edges. Unconcerned of the way that Marco can slice him open without thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Slim_Deedee_)   
[Tumblr](https://deedee-writes.tumblr.com/)


	8. Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last Time, 
> 
> Marco reveals to Luffy his experience with Momonosuke and Kin'emon, and finally gives on to habits he thought he'd left behind.

"Mister Marco, I'm going to have to ask you to step back from there." Marco's so deep in thought the voice seems foreign, dream-like. It fails to startle him if only because Marco remains a lifetime away. His body stands at the mercy of the early morning, caressed by the serene of the night and enveloped in a sea of stars. The moment has a peace to it that Marco's forgotten existed, where he feels like there's enough space, but he's protected anyway. The sea will catch him, and the stars will watch him and the sea won't leave him alone. (He doesn't call it safety because he's not sure anything can be safe anymore.)

"I wasn't going to jump." He says it without moving a muscle, and he also says it too fast. Despite his comedic shenanigans, Brook isn't an idiot, and he clearly knows what Marco's up to. He wasn't going to jump, _ not tonight at least. _ But Psychiatry dictates that people contemplate suicide between 3 months to a year before attempting it. Without mentioning that there's always the possibility, Marco just _ slips and falls and sinks _into the oblivion of the deep blue sea. 

It's appealing, but it's also not as appealing as it used to be.

(Marco prayed for death more than once, every morning, every afternoon with making up the religious fervor he's lacked his entire life.)

Luffy's kiss is seared in his mind. 

"I'm still going to need you to step back." His voice is tight, but it softens a little when he continues. "That's the captain's special seat, sitting -or standing as the case might be- is forbidden, unwritten ship rule."

Marco doesn't move. He's thinking of Dressrosa and Doflamingo and Trafalgar Law's convoluted plan. Marco has a feeling, from having sailed with Ace, that that plan is going to go up in smoke. They've been sailing for almost two weeks, mostly making sure they have truly lost their tail. (Marco thinks they're purposely giving him time to adjust before docking somewhere, but he hasn't said a word, mostly because he really does need the time.) 

"Mister Marco?" The voice is closer now, crawling from Marco's back, and it sounds like an angry ghost. He turns around methodically, with stiff limbs, meeting Brook's empty sockets. They had caused quite a stir in him the first time he'd seen them because _ had he looked anything like that? _ But, in the end, after seeing the skeleton day after day, it'd just… lost its edge. Now Marco only feels the healthy amount of trepidation an average person feels when stared down by an undead body. "Would you care to accompany me for some tea?" It's a very subtle invitation to keep an eye on him, but Marco, slowly coming back to regain the feeling of his limbs after an out of body experience, only nods. 

"I wasn't going to jump," he states again, wondering if either of them believes that. 

"I never said you were," the musician deflects. Marco must be more out of it than he thought because the next time he's truly concious of what's happening he sits at the kitchen table and Brook's talking to him, at firs it seems a little like white noise but then, the words start being processed right. "...Death isn't going to grant you what you want." 

Marco rather thinks there's no way the skeleton knows what Marco wants, and he hates himself a little when next to the familiar images of Pops and Thatch and Ace and the _ Moby… _Luffy's sunny smile sneaks in. He hums, in acknowledgement that he's listening, preferring to not share how much Marco doesn't feel like himself today. (Marco doesn't remember the last time he felt like himself, actually, his soul inhabits a body that has been violated and obliterated again and again, more myth than man, more suffering that existence.)

"A presumptuous claim, I'm aware, but bear with this old man for a moment." Despite his bony appendages and his size, Brook works seamlessly in the kitchen. "I saw my crew get slaughtered." 

"That's one way to begin a conversation," he comments bitterly, "a bunch of mine are dead too," Marco regrets the words as soon as they're out of his mouth. (He's feeling defensive, it feels a little like Izou's voice in his head.) He _ wasn't going to jump, he wasn't. _(And if he was, it's certainly not Brook's or anyone else's business.) The swordsman hums lightly, unbothered by Marco's crass accusation as he puts a steaming cup of tea in Marco's reach. 

He sits down across from him, oddly graceful for his long, thin limbs as he settles his cane to rest against the mint-colored table dresser. He gives Marco a look, a _ why do you want to be difficult? _There's only one man who Marco has ever tolerated that look from, and he's long dead. It only makes him angrier. 

"I wished for death once too," the musician confides, "I wished for death a long time because of what happened that day."

At Marco's silence, Brook assumes he'll be heard. 

"I missed them. I had tried to protect them down to my last breath. I had lost people before, and I will lose people again. Their images were branded with God-given accuracy in my mind as I died. Not even death, darkness, or loneliness, not even a new life has ever taken those feelings away from me. And that guilt _ of surviving," _Marco's heart stutters and betrays him when his breath hitches. "Has never made it harder to sink into a crew again or to love my Nakama with the same fiercely protective feeling that has failed me before." 

"I… don't follow" Marco's palms are warm as they wrap around the teacup, and he forcibly relaxes his grip lest he breaks it. 

"The end is only a new beginning, and the things that we carry with us, Mister Marco, are not _ attached to us. _Rather, _ we _ are _ attached to them. _Were you to leave this world carrying your burdens with you, they shall stay with you, as well." The sound of Brook's teacup finding its saucer seems to reverberate right into Marco's brain, leaving his ears ringing, and Marco very consciously starts to measure his breathing.

"I do apologize for my abruptness." By the way Brook's head is angled, Marco can tell the other is aiming to meet his gaze, perhaps to convey sincerity. "I have… a personal dislike for people throwing away their lives, and a more significant concern for people who hurt my Captain. I trust that you shall ask for help long before either of those things apply to you."

Marco, distantly, wonders where all his anger went. 

"It is hard, though," he replies, a non sequitur that still fits in flawlessly in such an abstract discussion. He's not quite sure, but Brook seems to be advising him, scolding him _ and threatening him _ all at the same time. "Loving after losing, _ it is hard." _

"Not when it comes to the Captain," Brook denies, and there is deep-rooted amusement in his tone. "One could say we become more selective after losing. It's about finding people worth suffering for. I was a spirit for a long time, so long in fact that by the time I found my body, it was only bones. _ Skull joke." _The recurrent pun is but a whisper, but it does not lack in mirth. "I wandered around for decades. Eventually, my shadow got stolen, and I really did become resigned that I had come back from the dead to haunt nothingness and to carry my burdens alone. Weighted down in unkept promise. And then, the Captain showed up one day and asked me to join his crew. You would think I'd jump at the offer of living the darkness of the Florian Triangle behind."

"You did, though," Marco motions vaguely around, Brook's here, after all. The skeleton seems to smile.

"My first reaction was to say no." As he pauses to sip at his cup, Marco realizes he has yet to take a single gulp out of his. The tea isn't quite lukewarm, but he's going to have to drink it fast if he wants to avoid it going cold. "I'd been alone and hopeless for so long, anything else seemed too out there, much too frail to be true. Humans are, above all, Mister Marco, creatures of habit. Even pain, suffering, and sadness can become our default state. We may hate how we live, but we also hate the idea of something new."

"You were scared." A feeling Marco definitely understands, Brook nods. 

_ Why not? I want it. _

"It may be too much to ask, I cannot pretend to know what you've been through, but if I were allowed to offer some advice, it would be that the Captain's, Luffy's new… it's humbling, and in a crew filled with very _ selective people, _ he's definitely proven himself _ worth it _over and over again."

Marco thinks of Luffy pressed down on him. 

Marco thinks of Luffy's hungry kiss.

(Marco thinks of when he held Luffy in Rusukain and thought he was breakable.)

"I know." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol, I accidentally wrote two chapter 8's with completely different ocurrences, which means chapter 9 is ready.


	9. Anger

Sanji's never considered Luffy a violent man, but as he and Zoro struggle to physically restrain him from beating Caesar Clown to death in cold blood, the cook thinks he might have to reevaluate that opinion. He wonders what it is that Luffy saw to make his gentle-hearted captain make that expression and promise murder.

(All Luffy can see behind his eyelids are Marco's empty eye socket, Mark's stubby fingers, the slippery feel of sea stone _ drilled into a hipbone, _ and _ god fucking dammit!)_

"Get out of my way," it's a hard thing, to not follow the command. 

"Can't we let him kill him?" Zoro grunts out, letting out a huff of breath as one of Luffy's rubbery arms nails him in the stomach. Law, the fuckwit standing safely away, snaps.

"Obviously not."

"Fucking shit," Sanji twirls in place, delivering a solid kick to Luffy's middle, sending him tearing out the hallway. "Get that stupid scientist out of his sight. If he gets him, I'm not getting in between them again."

* * *

It starts because Marco wakes up from a nightmare. Maybe.

Now, Marco isn't wholly foreign to nightmares before this moment, he's lived an eventful life, and there are things in it that he's not proud of. Before, he'd wake up with a pounding heart and a sweaty back. Marco would catch his breath, maybe take off his shirt and go back to sleep. When he'd been younger, and the crew had been smaller, he sometimes snuck into Pop's room. As he developed as an adult, other coping mechanisms came to be, some better than others. In the end, Marco never struggled to separate his dreams from reality, which didn't make the dreams any less heart-wrenching, but it did make calming down significantly easier. 

That isn't the case now. 

When Marco has nightmares now, they aren't born out of a guilty conscience or too many bad decisions, they are rooted in memory and in soul-searing pain. Marco doesn't wake up panting for breath, oh no, Marco wakes up _ screaming. _

Today, he's brought back to reality by the raw feeling of tearing in his throat, as always to find Luffy's concerned gaze and soft reassurances, sweet nothings if there ever have been. 

* * *

Law is annoyed. 

The navigator hasn't been _ navigating, _ and instead, she's taken the _ longest possible route to Dressrosa _ and Law's sure Luffy has something to do with it. (He's wrong of course, Luffy isn't suited to that type of deceptively subtle courtesy or planning, but that's what his crew is for, and Nami has cleverness in spades.) Nami-ya, though, Law does know, is a woman of formidable character, and considering that Law can piece together well enough _ why _their journey has lengthened, he knows better than to complain. He's still on edge from Luffy's glare the day Marco was brought onto the ship. Law doesn't want to contemplate who would win out of the two of them in a fight.

As he glances around the deck, Roronoa-ya napping, Long Nose-ya gardening, and Nico-ya sunbathing; all of them out on the deck, always in pack, he scoffs. As if his fight against Straw Hat-ya would ever be only the two of them. As much as it pains him to admit it, it's hubris to think Law can take them all down by himself. 

(And maybe he examines the Phoenix gardening or washing plates or generally at least _ faking _ to be a functioning human being after barely surviving as the plaything of a mad scientist, and Law's a little impressed. Whether at the older pirate, Straw Hat-ya, or his crew is yet to be decided. It's a distant feeling, a little like a puppy getting adopted after leaving an abusive home. A _ good for the puppy _ kind of attitude, hollow in that you would've never adopted him yourself. Perhaps, Law's even touched enough to not say anything about their route. He's been waiting 13 years to take down Doflamingo, a part of him fully expects to die, it's not like a week or two will make all the difference.)

Finally, though, it's time to make the call. Law's so fed up with the ship's ridiculous antiques and stormy moods that he ignores the way Straw Hat-ya looks restless. Not hyperactive or high on life like usual, but on edge as the Strawhats and the surgeon gather around. Law spares the other man a glance as he fiddles with the den den mushi and muses to himself that the other man looks to be so deeply in thought that he might hurt himself from thinking that hard. Then he remembers who he's referring to and decides Luffy's probably just thinking about dinner. (Law hasn't seen Phoenix-ya anywhere today, which means he must be having a rough day.)

He finishes setting up, dismissing Straw Hat-ya's mood. They're ready to make the call, except for one thing. Law stares at Luffy and again has the feeling that something's not right, it's such a certain feeling that Law almost proposes to do the call tomorrow. It's silly, they're set up to do it, and Law has no reasonable explanation for the sinking feeling he gets as he meets Luffy's frown.

"We need to bring Caesar on deck." Straw Hat-ya takes it as bad as Law expected, clenching down hard on his teeth. In a show of restraint, he's deadly still as he questions Law.

"Why?" 

"Doflamingo will want to talk to him, make sure he's alive." Law shrugs, his irritation spiking. For all his fame, the other man can be dense like no other. "It's procedure."

"Do you, eh, kidnap people a lot? Haha." Long Nose-ya's attempt at humor falls flat in the face of Luffy's anger. The younger raven crosses his arms, looks away, _ pouts _and goes:

"I don't wanna."

Law feels his eye twitch. He tries to be diplomatic and therefore curves the reflex answer of _ well, too bad. _

"Straw Hat-ya, I get that you don't like Caesar, no one does, really." _ We weren't even close to replicating his Devil Fruit. Mostly, we were trying to determine its limits, understand how much of it can be science and how much of it is mysticism. What would it take for Marco the Phoenix to die? _ Law doesn't let the memory interrupt him. It's a close call. "But Doflamingo would be stupid to not ask for verification that we have him and that he's alive. If we don't put Caesar on the phone, he just won't believe us or assume he's dead, and there goes our plan." 

"Luffy," It's Nico-ya calm voice drifting over their conversation, and it seems to soothe Luffy somewhat, taking off some of the rough edges in his posture. "I know it's frustrating, but Traffy's right. Do you still want to go along with the plan?" The pirate captain does not look pleased by any stretch of the imagination. Law once again wonders about Straw Hat-ya's ability for empathy, how can so many emotions fit into one person? "I can go accompany Marco if you want, just while Caesar is here." Luffy bites his lip at this. Slowly, he nods his head, seemingly appeased by the arrangement.

Law lets out a long breath.

_ Fucking finally. _

* * *

"Excuse me."

"Robin?" As the tall woman enters his room, Marco's in bed, reading. It's supposed to be a comedy, something to lift his spirits after an exhausting night, but Marco's always had trouble laughing at books. (The one he's reading isn't too bad though, and it's serving the purpose of keeping him distracted.) When Luffy had been here, there had been other ways to be distracted, but Marco hears today the crew would initiate contact with Doflamingo. Robin, in his room during such a meeting, is a puzzle piece he cannot figure out. 

The woman smiles, it's tempered and trusting. Somehow, Nico Robin's always had the ability to make Marco feel at ease. There's something in her gaze that he cannot pin down that feels like being held. Marco thinks Robin would make a brilliant mother, with a gaze that promises to keep you safe in her eyes. Roronoa is a guard dog, but Robin is a guardian. 

"There will be an unpleasant exchange on deck," she says enigmatically, taking a seat next to Marco on the bed. Idly she takes the book Marco's put down and eyes it critically. "I've never read this."

Before answering, Marco stops to examine the intruder into his sanctuary. He knows, objectively, that he and Robin have several similarities, one of them being that they are closer in age than most of the crew. There's also the tragic backstory and, most importantly, a zealous protectiveness over Monkey D. Luffy. (Though admittedly the last one does go around a lot.) Despite that, in the week the phoenix has spent sailing in _ Sunny, _they have only exchanged a handful of words, if that. 

Though, Marco's heard plenty about her -and her Nakamas- from Luffy in the last couple of days. He first heard about her in Rusukaina... _ before. _

"It's from the library," Marco informs her unnecessarily, where else would he have gotten a book? "It's humor, I don't think that's your style." The older pirate doesn't let himself be baited into the conversation. _ An unpleasant exchange? _ It does take him a moment, but the abrupt inhale he takes betrays to Robin that he's figured it out. Of course, _ Caesar, _how could Marco forget him?

"It's going to be okay." The breath he takes is shaky, but Marco mostly believes her. 

(He wonders, as they sit in silence, an entire universe of questions and preconceptions in between, what does Nico Robin see when he looks at him? How much does she know? Does she judge Marco's weakness? Despise what he's doing to her captain? Does she pity him? Resent him? Or does she barely spare a thought to the stowaway occupying her home?

Marco once had an opinion about Nico Robin, but that was in another life. To him, she's one more of Luffy's colorful Nakama, and he's sure he's heard more about her than she's ever heard about him. His conversation with Brook is at the forefront of his mind. Does she know? Does _ Luffy _know? 

Marco doesn't mean it. He doesn't want to hurt Luffy, he knows he should say no, _ knows it _because Marco isn't the person Luffy knows. He's not a person anyone knows. Something in Marco, something important, died in Punk Hazard, and it's a matter of time for people to realize it.)

"I don't want to hurt him, I promise," Marco knew maybe his brain was running too fast, jumping over too many hoops to be a reasonable train of thought but Nico Robin's confusion is further proof. Marco's _ anxious, _ just anxious. These are not real thoughts. These are not real thoughts. He isn't meant for death, _ he isn't. _ And, his throat feels tight even as he tries to push the positive affirmations on top of the chaos. He's _ not _ going to hurt Luffy, Marco can't, can't, can't…

"To love someone is to hand them over the power to hurt you, I'm afraid that that's not a promise anyone can hope to keep." Her voice seems otherworldly as if instead of Marco's genuine anguish and trauma, they're discussing a faraway notion. It eases him a little, the detachment, but he thinks that -more than purposeful soothing- that is just how Robin thinks of the world. All data and life lessons. Fitting, considering she's a historian. But, 

"_ Love?" _he chokes out. Is Marco, who often feels like he drags his feet to even exist mediocrely, even capable of such a thing at this point? He thinks of Luffy, and Marco thinks of him as safety and laughter and everything right with the world. Luffy is a living and breathing representation of everything Punk Hazard tore out from Marco, burned it in blue fire, and agonizing pain. Marco wants almost to bundle him up and keep him secluded from reality forever. Marco trusts Luffy, maybe because when there had been nothing, there had been Luffy. In Marco's awakening, his 'rebirth' after finally leaving hell behind, there had been Luffy. Now, Marco wants that feeling of waking up to the will to live made man every day, an imprint of a kind.

(He also wants Luffy's mouth trailing down his shoulder blades, calloused palms roaming _ everywhere, _ dirty whispers in his ears. Luffy's nothing if not thorough, prideful, _ hungry, _ but impossibly gentle. Marco wants him, _ wants him _ even more than he did back in Rusukaina when it was the younger man chasing away failure in Marco instead. There had been nothing gentle in him then.)

Marco _ wants _ Luffy. A case can be made that it is the pirate captain who stubbornly stands between Marco and eternal damnation. Marco _ needs him _ if he ever hopes to reclaim whatever he lost or, at least, learn to live without it. Marco would unquestionably _ die for him, _he's been willing to before. Despite the guilt that arises at the thought, he knows better than to call a series of circumstances and attraction Love. 

Then, there's a crash coming from the deck, and Marco's on his feet and out the door before Robin can stop him. Something inside him trembles, but… but _ Luffy. _

* * *

The call goes as expected, that is nerve-wracking and suspiciously succesfull. But when they're taking Caesar back down, under Luffy's watchful gaze, the clown makes a mistake. Maybe, Doflamingo's willingness to negotiate for him has fed his ego, perhaps he's been emboldened by his imminent release or now feels secure in his survival. Whatever it is, it erases his common sense, when, as they enter the hallway to take him back down, he very casually inquires:

"How's the phoenix doing?"

It's proof of how tightly wounded Luffy is that such an innocuous question is all it takes for the captain to lose his shit. 

Sanji never thought he'd have to kick _ Luffy _out of all people.

* * *

Luffy's pushed out on deck. He comes flying through, and he's _ glowing red. _Marco's scared of many things admittedly, far more than he's ever been before, but the Conqueror's Haki is almost comforting in its familiar pressure. Luffy's trembling, in anger and in grief. When Marco comes closer, he stiffens, breathing heavily.

The older man looks down on him, bringing a hand to rest on his hair in a maneuver he hasn't used since his times as a doctor on Whitebeard's tiny homeland. A pair of dark eyes greet him. Luffy tries to soften his brow as he looks at Marco, but the phoenix can still read all the frustration and blood-thirsts hiding behind narrowed eyes. (Clearly, Ace and Luffy shared a temper.) The thought brings a smile to Marco's lips, and it seems to startle Luffy a little. Enough that even though he's clearly confused, he smiles back, and the gathered energy of his will dissipates. His shoulders slump, but his fists remain clenched. Something in Marco stirs in the face of this tiny human, being offended and angry on Marco's behalf. 

He catches Roronoa Zoro's eyes over Luffy's head, the swordsman seems determined -but Marco's noticed that he always does. The older man wonders if the young pirate really is that confident or if he's just very good at pretending. Marco was a first mate, too, once. He's very much aware of what the responsibility entails, a first mate must be a man who never falters. He hopes the tiny nod he offers lifts off some of the burden. It is, sadly, not the first time Marco sees Luffy in a rage. 

"It's fine," he assures softly, biting back the incredulity. A scant few hours ago, Marco screamed himself raw in a dream. His first thought upon waking up was that nothing would ever be fine again. (_ Where is all this confidence coming from? _ The voice that asks is bitter.)

"It _ isn't," _Luffy scoffs.

"You're right," Marco admits, feeling oddly weightless, "but this isn't fine either."

"It's not fair." Marco's eyes tighten, wondering if Luffy can feel the trembles invading his fingers as the blonde pets him. 

"It isn't." 

_ Anesthesia? _

_ No, it might slow us down. _

"I don't want him here."

"Neither do I."

_ Shorororo! Marco, you are a scientist's dream. _

"But then…!"

"There are things more important." Luffy seems ready to protest. "Like beating Kaido." He bites his lip.

_ This is Luffy, he's my little brother, Marco! Can you believe he's already worth thirty million berries! _

"Nakama _ are _ the most important thing of all," he concludes decidedly. Marco doesn't ask him if Nakama –and Marco apparently counts inside this description now– are more important than being Pirate King because he's afraid of the answer. Luffy presses his forehead against Marco's breast bone, it's soft, and his hair tickles. (He's looking for something but if there was ever something Marco could give Luffy, it must've surely slipped out of him along with his intestines.) Marco only responds by palming the back of his head and staying still, relishing that he's repaying some measure of the comfort Luffy is so careless with. 

He eyes the crew on deck slowly. Nami, Sanji, and Zoro are at a distance, their eyes fixed on Luffy, but as Marco watches, they seem to relax. Trafalgar Law, a figure that Marco finds enigmatic on the best of days, is looking straight at him. For a moment, their eyes meet. It's the face of strangers meeting on foreign soil, the silent acknowledgment that they're both equally lost. The surgeon breaks the stare to look at Luffy, and offers Marco a nod, as if in _ thank you. _Marco suddenly feels very tired.

"Bed?" Luffy asks, as if sensing the change in Marco's mood, his words flow into Marco's skin. 

"You used to nap on the figurehead, right?" He feels Luffy nod, the younger man inhaling Marco's scent, something he's commented on before. Marco gives the deck another swipe, he's anxious, but it's manageable. Chopper keeps telling him to spend more time outdoors. Besides, for all his attitude, Luffy's still too tightly wound up, it's almost cruel to coup him up inside. "We can go there if you like."

"Yes!!" The words are barely out of his mouth when Luffy grabs him by the wrist and starts dragging him, somber mood all but forgotten. Marco's mouth curls up in a lazy smile, Luffy's really something


	10. Dressrosa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: panic attack, anxiety, unhealthy thoughts, graphic violence, death, implied/referenced torture.

Insomnia had never seemed like such a monster.

Marco's unsure of when it actually begins, but by the time he's consciously thinking about it, he's so tired. Marco knows he was asleep a lot initially, an ever-pressing haziness accentuated by warm sunshine or Luffy's embrace. As he starts being more awake, his days blur by in stilted conversations and sunblock and gardens. They almost breeze along in comfort, a cutting contrast to his nights that burn everlasting. 

If it's not memories assaulting him from Thatch, from the war, from Punk Hazard. It's turning around and looking at Luffy, innocent and shining and much too good for Marco and trying not to choke on his guilt. Or it's just nothingness, a numbness that clings on to him, and shakes him awake just as he's falling asleep. It threatens to de-escalate Marco's world to ones and zeroes, to a language that he can not understand, a wavelength he cannot tune into.

Marco twists and turns and aches and burns, but he does not sleep. 

His body is fine, always perfect, and primed for battle and life. But Marco, not Marco the Phoenix, but Marco the man, is so very tired. So very done. 

At first, the long nights are annoying, then frustrating.

After a while, they're haunting.

(Summarized in an unheard plea. _I just want to sleep.)_

Marco gets into bed, exhausted, and then… doesn't sleep. His eyes are heavy, and he cannot keep them open, but he's learned to be terrified of the silence inside his head, and the darkness behind his lids. 

No rest comes.

Marco begs, scrambling for a god he doesn't believe in, pandering his devotion for some rest, but none comes. 

* * *

When the teams leave for Dressrosa, Luffy kisses him goodbye. Marco's been shivering all morning, and he stands still in sleepwear on Sunny's deck, going back to bed is at the forefront of his mind. If he didn't get to rest the night before with Luffy, whose mere presence grounds Marco more than anything these days, he has little hope now that he'll be gone. The thought makes Marco swallow uncomfortably. 

This is the first time Luffy and he will be apart since the younger man carried him off Punk Hazard, Marco doesn't like the tightness in his chest or the twitching of his fingers. He places one hand on Luffy's head, looking down on him, trying to put what he's feeling into words, but nothing comes to mind. Luffy smiles up at him, vibrating with energy.

He stretches on his tiptoes, or maybe he cheats with his Devil Fruit, but his lips press chastely against Marco's mouth. Perhaps he takes some of Marco's panic with him. The former Whitebeard pirate is aware of several stares on them, but if anyone disapproves, they keep it to themselves. The thought makes Marco take a step back, trying to keep his eyes off their audience.

_(Don't look at me.)_

"Take care of _Sunny_ for me," Marco nods even though fighting is the last thing on his mind. Even now, he's cautious and skittish, he doesn't want to let Luffy go, but he also knows Caesar is going to be brought up any minute. If Marco never sees the scientist again, it'll be too soon. Coming along with the Dressrosa team is a sure way to get someone killed. Marco is nauseated by the thought, but the blackness edging his vision only makes it truer. 

"Be careful," he murmurs, a prayer and an order and a plea. Nearby, Zoro snorts. Marco meets his gaze on reflex, and he finds nothing there but mild amusement.

"He'll make a mess of this, don't doubt it." A growl comes from behind the swordsman, from where Trafalgar Law is leaning against the mast. 

"He better not," the surgeon grumbles. 

"...But he'll be fine," Zoro continues undaunted as if he hadn't heard Trafalgar at all. Marco smiles wryly.

"I'll take your word for it." Marco is inordinately touched by Zoro's smirk. There's nothing gentle in it, but perhaps there's a sliver of understanding, a connection. Marco's not sure what the feeling is, but it's welcomed. 

When they leave, Marco goes back to toss and turn in his empty bed. 

* * *

Marco knows its Big Mom's ship. The multi-colored, singing monstrosity is impossible to miss. 

_That old geezer isn't around to protect you anymore. _

He thinks he's going to freeze. 

_That fruit of yours is going to help me take over the seas. _

Something splinters. 

_As a fellow professional, you can tell that you've been all but designed to be taken apart. This is going to be revolutionary. _

The Sunny, the Straw Hats, _Luffy._

_(No more, no more, please.)_

No one's going to take it away from Marco.

No One. 

Sanji calls for him again, he's clearly wary of how Marco's going to react. 

_(Stop it! You cannot die here.)_

Marco's going to _sink that ship. _

\-----------

Marco's arms are flames when something fixes itself to his shirt, pulling him back from where he perches on the railing. It's almost too late to hold back when he realizes it's Sanji. Marco looks at him, a little like he has never seen him before but with a distant echo of complaints at Marco's peckish eating. It's enough to hold him still for a moment.

"What do you think you're doing?" The man's tone is unbothered, his characteristic drawl full-on display, but his brows are furrowed and he bites down hard on his cigarette. Marco looks down where he's made up of sharp blades and burning blue, _isn't it obvious?_ "We cannot attack an Emperor without talking to Luffy." Marco's puzzlement must show on his face, is he… does he want Marco to ask… for permission? _What? _

Marco's… not had to ask anyone for permission in more than two years ever since, since-

_Listen well, Whitebeard Pirates, I'm going to give you a Captain's Order, for the last time. _

Marco doesn't have a captain, he _doesn't._ Marco's not sure what expression he does but Sanji's grip slackens, and Marco shoots off in the air like hell is at his heels. His heart is pumping panic, a hummingbird beating Marco knows well. It's the fear of pain, never of dying. Prolonged suffering, nightmares, memories… those are the things Marco's afraid of. They melt off him as he focuses because Marco might be tired, weak, and very sad but he's also too gone to care, more of him in death than in life. Maybe Ceasar scooped out something vital in him through his experiments, and Marco's just been living without a part of him. Perhaps he will live without it for the rest of his days. 

His sanity? His happiness? His stability?

He doesn't need any of those things to tear the Big Mom pirates to shreds, small fry that they are. Small fry, and _how dare they?_ Every cannonball that grazes _Sunny_ brings rage ringing back into Marco's head, slamming into the bell guarding his self-control, cracking beyond repair, and leaving him dizzy. 

_Take care of Sunny for me. _

It's been a long time since any blood Marco's seen wasn't his own, and as his talons sink and tear and twist into a hurricane of limbs and pained groans, it takes him a moment. The pirates may be cannon fodder, but they're still the crew of an Emperor of the Sea. They catch on to Marco's sudden hesitation, a blip in the avenging angel that had swooped upon their deck, and they capitalized on it. Marco barely feels the sword that stabs right through his chest. Simultaneously, he is left dazed by the bullet that crosses his skull. 

It ground him as blue fire exploded, Marco's full wingspan stretches for the first time since Sphinx. He shouldn't be emboldened by the terrified cries of those who recognize him, but it makes his blood sing. Marco's so scared, even now. As he ducks and leaps and flies and rips, Marco's terrified. (It's time someone else is scared for a change.) He's too experienced, too war-weary to end up covered in blood, but the lack of wetness doesn't leave his hands any more clean. 

At some point in the rhythm Marco's fallen into, a dance he despises as much as he knows it, Sanji's own fire joins the fray. Marco barely spares him a glance, but there must've been a question in his eyes because the cook huffs and says:

"Luffy said to crush them," Marco's too out of it to answer, looking around in the lull of the confrontation, waiting for whatever big fish are riding this ship. Something tugs at his heartstrings, though. 

_Marco, it's over. You're safe now._

He looks around to the corpses, and he's not sure why they feel like a betrayal. They spell something for him, a dawning understanding that there's something wrong with him. Figures approach, and Marco's flames are delirious with anticipation. A quiet part of his mind ponders that maybe, Caesar didn't _take_ anything, maybe, he left something _behind._ A parasite taking root in Marco's soul that keeps him awake and whispers obscenities and heresy, that thrives on the taste of victory and blood. A parasite that wants to feed on fear, whether Marco's or anyone else's, doesn't seem to matter. 

Marco's vaguely aware that he knows the pair of Big Mom's pirates getting closer. It's distant recognition that assures that they've never crossed blades before, not really. The phoenix inside of him or the parasite or whatever was left of Marco after Punk Hazard rises to the challenge. Electric blue extends, and it might not burn, but it's certainly a sight.Marco hears a snarl, and it takes him a moment to realize it's him. Not the phoenix's melodious warcry but Marco's own human throat that growls a threat too primal to be put into words. 

And then, Marco's memories become disjointed because there's a shot, there's pain (everlasting suffering), and then there's cold. Marco looks down at his thigh, which has gone numb all of a sudden, and there's dark red spreading quickly across the blue fabric. Marco looks at it, suspended in time, lost within a thousand similar memories. 

_Drip, drip, drip. _

He sinks two fingers into the ripped hole of his pants, a morbid, enhanced version of poking a bruise and wonders at the way his blood coats his fingers. It's warm and slick. He presses in further, and the pain jolts him into reality, realizing how quiet the world had gone only when it becomes loud, loud, loud again. Sanji stands in front of him, the posture of his broad back unmistakeable angry, one flaming leg raised in warning to any who shall approach, but all Marco can think is…

No. 

Not again. 

Nonononononononononono.

He might whimper, whether in his concave chest or in real life, he doesn't know because Marco cannot breathe. His chest seizes against itself, rubbing organ and tissue together and not leaving any room for air. Instinctively, Marco hunches onto himself, mindless of his unresponsive leg or the growing wetness beneath him. He's a collapsing star, falling onto himself, desperately trying to keep himself together. His back aches, and for a terrifying moment, Marco cannot _see,_ everything falling out of focus and the Phoenix -in human form- screams. 

Or tries to, because only a horrible, throat-tearing shriek emerges. Too low to call for help. 

It's so cold. 

So cold, so cold, so cold, so cold, so cold, so cold.

"Marco!"

He's slipped, there's wetness underneath him, slick and cold, cold, cold, cold. Marco tries to answer, that's his name he knows, but… there's...

"Luffy…" 

* * *

_He knows, when his hands trail down bandages and pale skin. When the kiss that meets his want is careless and inexperienced. When the eyes that meet his are black depths that beg to forget. _

_Marco knows he should've said no._

_But it was so cold. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks a ton to [our doubts are traitors](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9409733/chapters/24336888#workskin) by astoryaboutwar which got me out of the funk I was with this story. If you're into YOI and you like HOL, you'll love it, it's painful as fuck and absolutely beautifully written. 
> 
> We don't have much to go, I'm thinking between 3 to 5 chapters more and we'll close.
> 
> How do you feel about Marco's reaction to Big Mom's ship?
> 
> xo,  
dee


	11. People

Zou is… an exciting experience for Marco. Melancholic in many shades, but somewhat peaceful. He knows there was fighting at their arrival, its history sowed into some of Marco's oldest friends and their scarred bodies. Marco had still been unconscious from the bullet wound then. To Chopper's worry, Marco was out for days. 

_ Physically speaking, you were fine the moment I removed the bullet. It was your mind that needed a break.  _

Marco naps a lot, trying -and failing- to make up for long, sleepless nights. In Zou, it's a mixture between not wanting to be awake and just existing taking a toll on him. He opens his eyes and wishes he hadn't woken up at all. During daylight, he's taken to sequestering himself amongst a particularly lovely tree and spending his days watching over Luffy's crew and avoiding old acquaintances, as the travelers from Wano. The rest of the Straw Hats are vigilant but somewhat distant, unsure, and unwilling about pushing Marco without their captain around. (Or perhaps less invested in Marco than he'd initially thought). 

He worries about Luffy endlessly, but the pirate captain eventually arrives on the island looking no worse for the wear and with hunger in his eyes, high on another impossible victory. Alas, before Marco gets to sink in Limbo, he'd have several interactions at the giant elephant's back. Enough so that when Luffy leaves after Sanji, the phoenix leaves with him. 

* * *

Nami, always fearless, approaches him first. 

"Can you fly me down? We need to check the garden." Marco's a phoenix, nesting in blue fire, almost high enough that she -with brown human eyes- must've had issues spotting him.  _ We,  _ she says. Marco wonders if he can say no; he wants to. 

Instead, he's roped into taxiing Nami down to the Sunny, and a part of him grudgingly admits that leaving the pressing darkness of the forest in exchange for the warm sea breeze lightens his mood. He wonders if it's a happy coincidence or if Nami's deviousness is multifaceted.

He's been on the  _ Sunny  _ long enough, and as they clip their way to the mandarin trees, gardening tools on hand, he knows better than to complain as Nami insists on putting sunblock on him. Her touch is just as sure as ever, and Marco marvels at it a little. Like the rest of her crewmates, Nami must've watched Marco tear into the Big Mom pirates with no mercy. Incidentally, she must've also watched as Marco was downed by one sea stone bullet and proceeded to freak out and pass out. Neither does he consider his finest moments, and for all that Nami seems unperturbed by the occurrence, shame clings to Marco just as hard as Marco clings to shame. 

The first time she'd touched him, only the second pair of kind hands Marco's met as of this point, Chopper's hoofs naturally excluded, he'd marveled at her boldness. For all she knew, Marco was nothing but a test subject, a lab rat. If she guided herself by his reputation, he was a highly dangerous pirate. Experience-wise, he was a man too broken to function. 

Her hand reached out to him and did not waver. 

Now, to Nami, Marco is not only a killer but also a highly unstable one. 

Her eyes are relaxed as she loses herself in the familiar movements, her nails are perfect ovals drifting along his skin. Her hand cups his face, adding extra sunblock on Marco's nose, ears, and cheeks, protecting the most vulnerable areas as if Marco could  _ actually burn,  _ and this wasn't all some strange ritual that Marco's growing more fond and undeserving of everyday. 

How come symbolic skincare still makes his eyes water?

The moment is soft in an inexplicable way. 

(Marco misses Luffy in one big hit that steals his breath.)

_ How could she stand him? _

"I was in another pirate crew before Luffy recruited me, have you ever heard?" She's putting on gloves when she says it, and Marco must've zoned out at some point because she's standing a couple of feet away as Marco holds on to his shirt with loose fingers. He answers while he puts the dark blue garment on. 

"Luffy told me you hated pirates before joining him," Marco replies, he feels the stirrings of curiosity, but they're muted by the rushing in his ears. He's trying to pay attention to Nami, but it feels like he's not really there.

"I did."

"I see, yoi." Nami laughs a dry thing, like stepping on wildflower grass. A laugh that said,  _ no, you don't. _

"I was forced to work as a cartographer for the pirate crew that enslaved my island and killed my mother," Nami explains, "I became a thief."

"'Burglar Cat' Nami," he whispers to the tangerine tree's roots as he kneels. His gloves are a simple, muted brown, and they're still stiff from disused. Ussop told him they'd get more comfortable with time, and it made something strange flip inside Marco as he'd nodded his understanding. 

"Actually," Nami contradicts, "that name came much later." She doesn't meet his eyes when she speaks, not even Marco's sudden movement to turn to hers catches her attention. She's stopped weeding, staring at the tangerine trees. _They come from her home,_ Marco recalls. "I thought I was scum, tainted, and twisted by the things I'd done and the people I worked for. I made sure to force the people that I loved to treat me like that. I tried to pretend I didn't hate everything I'd done, but I did." It comes softly and viscerally, dampened in resigning that some things do not get better with time. "And then, I joined this crew, and no one here thought I was scum." They thought of me as Nakama, no questions asked they thought of me as someone worth fighting _for." _Her sigh is a little restless as she pauses. "So _that's how, Marco," _her tone drips with intent,_ "_because there's nothing about you inherently monstrous, and I don't think there ever will be."

"That's how, yoi?" he echoes, confused. Nami's eyes finally meet his own, they're red-rimmed, but nothing else in her gives away her inner turmoil.

"That's how I can  _ stand  _ touching you because there's no hardship in reaching out when someone needs it. The only one who thinks differently here is you." She glares at him as if angry at Marco's insecurity. 

_ Oh,  _ he realizes,  _ he's asked the question out loud.  _

* * *

"You are not eating, and as long as I am responsible for your food, that  _ cannot  _ be a thing."

The Straw Hat pirates are unsure of what to do with him, without their captain around. Marco spends most days as a bird in a clear message to leave him alone. The straw hats he can stand, but Zou holds inescapable memories and people who'll want answers. Answers Marco doesn't want to give. Sanji is taking an unorthodox approach, that of pissing Marco off.

(Being fair, maybe Marco's missing Luffy. Perhaps he's a little rubbed raw from his talk with Nami. Maybe he feels ashamed that he's a grown-man being lectured about taking care of himself. Maybe he's tired of people caring about him. Why can't they just  _ let him…? _

Maybe it's Marco the problem is what he means to say.)

Maybe, Sanji wouldn't have been taken if Marco had been there when Gang Bege arrived, but alas, he and Sanji did fight, and when Marco could've started repaying his debt to the Straw Hats, he was dawdling with his past.

* * *

"Marco?"

"Cat Viper, yoi."

Marco has avoided his old friends, not because of a lack of appreciation but rather, too much affection. He doesn't want to face that he rarely feels like the man they knew, doesn't want to accept -as his encounter with the Big Mom pirates proved- that there's something in him that's different. (He especially doesn't want to lose them because Marco cannot bear any more loss.)

They stand around the stone arc of Zou, looking out to sea. If their information is correct, Luffy should be arriving soon enough. Marco's not sure how Luffy will react to Sanji's disappearance, but he stays rooted to the spot. There's something in him aching, but it's more lighthearted than Marco has felt in days. 

(He's missed him, but that's just one more thing Marco doesn't dare accept.)

"It's been a long time," the Mink begins, just as wary and awkward as Marco himself feels, it steadies himself. In the midday sun, where shadows are relegated to the deepest part of the forest, it's impossible to stare at the sea when it glares bright white back… Marco almost doesn't remember why he'd been so afraid before. 

"Almost too long," Marco answers softly, and because he's feeling reckless and brave, adds: "I'm… sorry. It's been some…  _ rough  _ couple of months."

(He takes a moment to digest that he's trying to pass off a kidnapping, torture, and human experimentation as a  _ rough couple of months.  _ He has to turn around and bite his lip to not laugh.)

"I… might've heard some of it, yes." It stings, but it's also not surprising. It's impossible to know how much details were shared by those who saw Marco arrive from Punk Hazard, Marco's memories on his first days aboard the Sunny are more non-existent than hazy, but it'd be naive to think he'd been granted as much space as he had with no context. 

Before the conversation can really start going, there's ruffling from behind him as someone struggles to mount the elephant. Marco perks up at the first glimpse of raven locks that showed themselves, but there's something odd. He thought he'd heard of Luffy's arrival and somewhat looked forward to seeing this ship with Luffy's face on its bow. (It'd make him laugh, and not a lot of things did that these days.) Instead, Luffy had arrived… quietly? 

Something was wrong, and it gets worse as they finish climbing with an annoyed huff. 

"Marco?" The figure exclaims, bringing Marco's nightmares to life. "Marco!"

Black climbs at the edges of his vision, and he takes a step back and then another. He eyes Cat Viper, who does not share his shock.  _ This is why he's here. _ He hadn't been looking for Marco; the Mink has been waiting for their new arrival. It's like Marco cannot breathe, and he forces himself to take a deep gulp of air and  _ hold it,  _ lest he  _ fuckin panics.  _

His voice is horrified when it finally emerges.

"Izou."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, I think I finally mapped out how this is going to wrap up. I'm picturing somewhere between 16 to 18 chapters. 
> 
> Did you guys liked the surprise?


	12. Easy Fix

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last time, Marco drifts as the days in Zou go by where he gardens with Nami, fights with the now-missing Sanji and stumbles onto his past.

Luffy stares at the den den mushi. He doesn't often think about things too deeply; it's a waste of time. People who think too much are often angry and sad and do too little about any of those things. Happiness is in doing, doing what makes you happy, and doing away with what makes you unhappy. Sometimes, like today, Luffy's problems have bounties and need a punch in the face. Sometimes, they're his friends, and they need a punch in the face. 

(Luffy's solved a lot of problems via punch in the face.)

Luffy doesn't think it'd go over well with Macro if Luffy punched him in the face, which is frustrating sometimes, but Luffy likes him anyway. He's grown even a little fond of quiet moments, something he hadn't desired before. He enjoys telling Marco all the things that go through his head, and the fact that he doesn't think  _ too deeply _ doesn't mean Luffy doesn't think at all. 

Marco, on the other hand, is definitely someone who needs to  _ think less.  _ Luffy knows what Marco's thinking looks like because he's sure they run in the same street as what the younger man pondered after Ace. But, and this is according to Luffy's experience and Jinbei's lesson (and the Fishman's very smart!): those are dumb thoughts. 

It's not Marco's fault. 

He cannot give up now. 

There are still things to live for. 

Luffy knows it's not easy, but Marco and Traffy and Jinbei and Hammock had all been there for him until he believed it, and Luffy would do the same for any of his Nakama. 

But, he's learning as he looks through the bars at the den-den mushi Kin'emon's holding. Maybe there's something more to Marco because it takes a lot to make Luffy angry, but it seems to take very little when it comes to the older pirate. 

"Luffy?" Sanji's voice comes again, panicked, "Luffy, I need to know, Marco jumped ship already, and I can't really see how he's doing…" 

Luffy thinks briefly about Fishman Island.

Thinks about Ace's fruit being in Doflamingo's clutches.

About Marco's press of his lips before he left this morning and how it feels like it's been years.

"Crush them," he orders and bites down to  _ keep Marco safe. _ Marco's strong and Luffy will not doubt him like that. The older pirate has enough doubts for both of them. Sanji's thirst for battle is palpable through the speaker.

"Roger, Captain." 

"All of you be careful!" Luffy will just have to trust his Nakama will handle themselves. There's too much at stake, too much to do. The quicker he gets Ace's fruit and beats Mingo, the faster they can be back together on the  _ Sunny. _

_ Puru. _

* * *

"Did Luffy sound…. odd?" Ussop wonders.

"I think he might be upset that Sunny is under fire," Robin comments, making Franky frown.

"Sunny will be fine. She's a SUPERRR ship, built by yours truly after all!" 

Ussop stares at him, nonplussed, while Robin giggles.

"I think she means that Marco's on the Sunny, Franky."  _ Oh, _ that does make more sense, Franky's cheeks go warm. Usopp seems to frown as he says it. "I like Marco well enough, but… aren't we concerned how attached Luffy seems to be with him?"

"What you mean, Ussop-bro?"

"I mean, Marco's been through a lot and… you know, I've overheard Caesar and Traffy talk… it's worse than we think… a lot worse. And Luffy isn't exactly, ah,  _ tactful.  _ It's just, I'm worried y' know? That they're going to hurt each other."

"You think Marco might kill himself and break Luffy's heart," Robin mutters, more to herself than their group, almost as if pondering the idea. 

"Robin! Don't say it like that." Usopp exclaims, but he doesn't deny the reasoning. The acknowledgment hangs heavy in between them, filling the cave with awkwardness and hesitation. Huh. It's not like Franky isn't guilty of the same thought, but that was before he'd spoken to Luffy. "Look, I also overheard Brook telling Chopper about an… incident."

"You sure hear a lot of things, Ussop…." Franky chides, frowning slightly. He tries to soften his brow. It wouldn't do for it to come patronizing to his youngest crew member. The blue-haired man knows they cohabit small quarters, but Ussop needs to stop listening to private conversations. The cyborg shares a look with Robin, though, allowing the sniper to go on.

"What incident?" the archeologist prompts. 

"He found Marco on the figurehead in the middle of the night, just… standing there." Ussops hand gesture in quick short bursts that say nothing but how tangled Ussop feels about the whole issue. "Marco denies anything was happening, but after what he's been through, I mean, after Marineford and the Payback War and Punk Hazard… I don't judge him, but… Luffy…" The East Blue native trails off and seems to sink deep in thought. His shoulders hunch in tragedy and fear, but little understanding. It's logical, isn't it? Great tragedy and people wishing for death seems intrinsically linked. Franky wonders about such a connection. Immediately made and yet so rarely discussed. 

"I see your point, but there's not much we can do. Getting out to avoid pain isn't really Luffy-bro's vibe." And it never would be, Franky has no doubt. 

"I know, I know. I'm stressing out for naught but, I just… I look at Marco, and there are days where he smiles, and you think he's getting better, and then… then I hear he's suicidal, or you stop seeing him for days, or I find him passed out in the hallway…. I also feel bad  _ for him.  _ What I heard from Caesar was so bad I thought I would be sick, and that guy  _ lived it _ for months. Just… how do you come back from that?"

Sometimes, Franky realizes, he forgets just how young some of his crewmates are. Ussop might be well on his way to being a brave warrior of the sea as he often claims, he's a reliable comrade and a fairly insightful young man. But, he's young, and some things cannot be acquired without experience. To someone who hasn't experienced love, loss and then had life go on… its probably inconceivable. 

Not to trivialize Marco's suffering, though Franky lacks the details, as he shares a look with Robin, the answer he knows is reflected back at her in her eyes. 

_ You just… do. _

You keep running. 

Start tinkering and fixing.

Keep putting one foot in front of the other until one day, you can breathe. You never forget, but you learn to move with your grief. Franky hopes that Marco makes it to see whatever's waiting for him on the other side of this. He'll help all that he can, but... if he doesn't, he'll be a sojourn in Luffy's journey, and Franky's captain will go on. 

Just like Robin's family or Tom guide them through the seas, filling them with promise and driving them through the inheritance of dreams left unfulfilled.

That's just the type of man Luffy is, and as cynical as it may be, just how life works. Not a concept he's confident he can translate well, but...

"You know, Luffy asked me something similar."

Twin pair of surprised eyes meet his own. 

"Luffy?"

"Yeah, I was surprised too."

_ You're good at fixing things, right? I need to fix Marco so that he's not sad anymore.  _

"He wanted to know how to fix Marco," the cyborg elaborates. 

"That's so very like him," Robin comments, sounding immeasurably fond. Franky smiles, always moved, and a little baffled by Luffy's sideways thinking. 

"Yeah…"

"What did you tell him?" Usopp questions. 

"That he was already doing fine." 

"He is?" Ussop presses, "our captain?" Robin nods, picking up on Franky's meaning. 

"He's offering care and support and space when needed," Robin reasons, "the ethics of sleeping with someone who you know is in an unstable mind frame is just as questionable as taking advantage of the comfort offered by a man 2 decades your junior." Franky and Usopp sweatdrop uncomfortably at Robin's calloused assessment.

"Robin-sis, you're making it sound wrong…" Robin's head tilts in innocent askance. 

"You think so?"

"Definitely." Ussop nods frantically.

"Most of what she said isn't wrong, though. I think Luffy has been doing his best, just like everyone else is trying to do, and there's not much room for more." Similarly to everyone else who has sailed aboard the magnificent Thousand Sunny, before joining the journey of the Pirate King, Marco the Phoenix is going to have to fix himself, get his affairs in order to throw it all into reaching the most feared and coveted destination of all: Laugh Tale. "Besides, from what Luffy told me, they'd had something already, during the two years we were off. So I don't think it's as situational as it appears to us, I was worried too." 

"Wait, what?!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good news, the rest of the story is officially outline so now we hold tight till the end! I might add one more chapter, but it's not looking that way really. I know it's giving the same vibe but Marco's character arc here is different to Luffy's Mystery Bird, specially in what his relationship with Luffy is like. 
> 
> Next chapter is somewhat drafted and we will explore what actually went down in Rusukaina via our guest Izou. I hope you're enjoying seeing things come together <3


	13. History I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last time, Ussop, Robin and Franky discuss the health of Luffy and Marco's relationship, in order to offer some reassurance, Franky offers a scandalous piece of information about Luffy and Marco's convoluted history.

Brook is a ghost as he strolls through the jungle in search of Marco. Apparently, Luffy's ship has found some trouble (a pet man? ), and they're now several hours behind. Nami, a lovely lady with plenty of foresight, has asked Brook to let the blonde man know lest he _freaks the fuck out for nothing when Luffy doesn't arrive fast enough, _as she so eloquently words it. He's almost there when he hears the yelling, a voice screaming Marco's name, and his leisure steps quicken. Brook isn't the fastest straw hat for nothing, but as he breaks the foliage, breezing by the moss-covered arc that marks the entrance to Zou, he only catches a hint of furious blue.

"-fuck are you going?!" The figure Brook heard before hurries as well, and the skeleton barely has time to snap in front of him. He's not sure what's happening, but Mister Marco clearly needs some space, and this man looks like he's about to hurl himself at the disappearing phoenix.

"I'm going to have to ask who you are, sir," Brook offers, grabbing on to his cane. He spots Master Cat Viper in the back looking unhappy, and he's unsure if his presence should be reassuring or further concerning. From what little he's heard, Mister Marco and some of the mink go way back, but the skeleton knows that history doesn't mean _good history. _Some could say he and Moria go way back too.

The man, wearing an elaborate, sunset-colored kimono, stops dead on his tracks, blinking up at Brook. His jaw drops, and he seems frozen for a moment. Brook blinks, taken aback by the man's stunned reaction. Before he can ask if the other is okay, the man jumps, startled, and points his gun.

"Why is there a talking skeleton here?!" he startles out of his shock. Huh. Brook really has to stop being surprised at people's reactions to him one of these days. At the moment, he's a little more concerned about the weapon being waved in his direction by an unknown entity.

"Excuse me, sir! Would you mind not pointing your weapon at me?" he asks, politely like his long-learned manners indicate. Jokes are always good to diffuse unpleasant situations, so… "it's no good for my heart, you see? Although I have no heart! Yohohoho! Skull joke!"

Silence.

Ah, it _is_ a bit hit or missed at times.

"I don't have time for this, I can't let Marco…" as the man attempts to circumvent the musician, Brook is quick to reposition himself.

"And what is your business with Mister Marco?"

"What do you care?" he bites out angrily, arms crossing in his chest and taking the aim of his gun away from Brook, thankfully. "Who are you anyway?"

"This is one of the visiting Pirates, the ones that are with Kin'emon, Izou," Cat Viper steps in, watching calmly as if his two guests (?) weren't worrisomely close to exchanging blows. So, this man is familiar with the samurai—a good start.

"A pirate…" Izou repeats, turning back to stare at Brook. He's openly hostile, Brook notes. "And who is your captain? Are you really just a skeleton?!" Easy enough questions, reasonable ones too.

"Let me introduce myself," he begins, relishing an artist's flair, "my name is Brook, the musician of the Straw Hat Pirates under the command of Monkey D. Luffy." He bows as he brings his top hat to rest on his chest, slow enough to not miss the widening of Mister Izou's eyes. Recognition, no doubt. "Mister Marco is under my captain's protection at the moment, and as such, you will understand I wish to know your intentions towards him."

"My intentions towards him, huh?! _My intentions toward him?! _That guy is my fucking brother!"

Brook swallows his surprise, instead offering a glib apology. No wonder Mister Marco had run, though.

"If it's okay with Master Cat Viper, why don't you come in and meet the rest of us. I assure you, we have at least some of the answers you are looking for."

"Where's Straw Hat? And will… will Marco come back…?"

"My captain is on his way here from Dressrosa, and about Mister Marco…" well, Brook has a fair idea of where the phoenix might've turned to "I believe so, yes." The other man deflates and nods. He shoots a look to the Mink Chief, who nods reassuringly, smoking away any discomfort.

"I'll go with you then."

And off they go.

* * *

Izou sits around the table speechless. Heartbroken is maybe more accurate a word. He thinks of the one glimpse he'd caught of Marco, his hair the same sunray blonde and his skin healthily tanned and his back just as broad. His older brother looked just as Marco remembers him, even larger than life now that'd resurrected himself from Izou's dreary worries of his whereabouts. But of course, that dissonance between appearance and feeling has always been Marco's weak spot.

"Tortured," he mutters for what must be the tenth time, at least. The redheaded woman clamps down on his hand again, offering a measure of reassurance as the tiny reindeer (their doctor of all things) explains what he can of Izou's brothers' circumstances.

"Yes, from what we've gathered, he was taken from the island he'd been living in by Kaido, and eventually forcefully interned at Punk Hazard under the… care of former government scientist Caesar Clown," he repeats patiently. "We stumbled upon him a scant few weeks ago, and he's spent all the time recuperating."

"But do you know…? Why would they…? How?" Izou doesn't even know what to ask. His brain keeps looping back helplessly to the last visit he gave Sphinx.

_It's never going to be okay or the same, but yeah, Izou, I'm happy._

And not,

This.

Just… how? _Why?_

Hadn't they suffered enough?

"I'm sorry, Izou," Chopper says as Brook carefully refills their teacups, "but I can't give you any details without Marco's consent. It falls within doctor-patient confidentiality, and, well, you haven't been authorized for these types of sensitive information. Not even as his next of kin. Psychiatric therapy depends a lot on trust, you see."

There's something about the way he says it that deviates Izou's anger from demanding answers to questioning.

"Someone though," he says, before rethinking such a strangely worded sentence "access, I mean. Someone else is authorized to know about what Marco says." Chopper looks away guiltily but nods reluctantly. "You _can_ tell me who, right?" Again he nods.

"It's Luffy." Izou huffs an unamused laugh as he shakes his head.

"Of course, it would be."

"Hey now," Nami interjects, "what's that supposed to mean?"

"It's just, out of everyone in the seas who could've stumbled upon him, it was Straw Hat."

"I don't think we follow, Mister Izou," Brook intervenes, a looming shadow that alternates wildly between fiercely intimidating and disconcertingly comedic, "you have met our captain before?"

"I have," Izou agrees. "The last time I saw him… Well, Marco and Luffy were together for a while after the war. Briefly, very briefly, but… I've always thought Marco regretted leaving."

The three pirates share a look and jump forward, elbowing each other to get closer to Izou across the table, the teacups rattling in the commotion as widened eyes beg for questions.

"Wait!"

"Hold on a minute!"

"The captain was…."

"...with Marco?!"

"So," they chorus, "they'd slept together _before?"_

"They're sleeping together _now?!" _Izou's shock mirrors their own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is actually split in half, and I'll post the other half probably over the weekend :) What did you think about Izou?
> 
> Take care


	14. History II

_"Hold on a minute!"_

_"The captain was…."_

_"...with Marco?!"_

_"So," they chorus, "they'd slept together before?!"_

_"They're sleeping together now?!" Izou's shock mirrors their own._

"Backtrack, how do you know this, where you at the war?" Nami questions.

"Was I at the…! You have no idea who I am!" The crossdresser accuses.

"Eh, aren't you Mister Marco's brother?" Brook interjects.

"I mean yes, but… you know Marco's a pirate, right?" Izou now looks at the trio quizzically.

"Yes, yes, of course, we know he sailed under Whitebeard," Nami dismisses as if it was no big deal. Izou huffs, _youngsters nowadays_. He puffs out his chest proudly.

"So did I," he announces, "I'm Izou, former sixteenth division commander of the Whitebeard pirates."

"With Whitebeard?!" Chopper screams.

"Oh," Nami says, a strange look in her eye, "you sailed with Ace." Her tone is solemn and fond. It bites at Izou's chest, the smell of ashes clogging his nostrils for a moment, but he manages a soft smile.

"I did," he acknowledges, and because he's trying to treasure the past instead of erasing it, he adds: "when Ace first joined the Whitebeard pirates, before he got his own division, he was under my command."

"We met him in Alabasta once!" Chopper pipes up excitedly. "Our Captain Luffy is his little brother." Izou wonders momentarily at the use of present tense. By their expressions, Izou holds no doubt that the Straw Hats know Ace passed away, but… Izou smiles at the reindeer, something warm blooming under his skin. He likes them, no surprise there, Luffy has good instincts for people, Izou has learned. No matter what, Ace _is _his brother.

"I know," he chuckles, "your captain screamed it quite loudly at Marineford. Even if he hadn't, Ace wouldn't shut up about him." Izou gives them a look, conveying his seriousness. "_Ever._"

"He did seem like that type of guy…" Nami mutters, rolling her eyes. "The complete opposite of Luffy. Never even hinted at his existence _once _until he was standing on our deck. We almost couldn't believe they were related! Ace was so mature and polite… _ahhhh."_

Izou blinks. _Ace?_

Mature?_ Polite?_

"Excuse me?" he chokes out.

"What's wrong?" Chopper cuts in.

"You're talking about Portgas D. Ace, right?" the older pirate clarifies.

"Of course!"

Izou bursts out laughing. He laughs and laughs until he gets stitches thinking of the snot-nosed brat who lost to Whitebeard a 100 times.

"I think I have a story for you…" he acquiesces after amusing himself to snorting at their confusion, "Luffy and Ace are much more alike than they seem." And so the afternoon spirals into bursts of awed wonder and endless reminiscing, Izou doesn't remember the last time he spoke so much. The Straw Hats counter each ridiculous story about Ace with one about Luffy, and Izou has to resort to using another brother to one-up them. It's a little impressive that the Straw Hat's monster trio seems to catch up with the entire Whitebeard's Ship shenanigans by themselves. As the laughter dwindles down, leaving a pleasant hum in the air, Nami is the one who asks.

"Hey, Izou," she calls out, her glance sparkles in curiosity, switching gears in the conversation, "do you know what happened between them? Luffy and Marco, I mean." Izou nods, remembering a different time.

"Some of it, yeah." A small part of him reminds him that it's Marco's personal business, but this does involve the Straw Hat's somewhat, and Izou's always had a penchant for gossip, "but I think only those two know the entire story."

"Nami…" Chopper begins, but he too is leaning forward in interest.

"Hush, Chopper," the navigator interrupts, "can you tell us?" Izou makes an exaggerated thinking face to mess with her but eventually nods.

"Sure, this is what I know," he agrees. "Marineford ended when the Red Hair Pirates arrived to back up our side. By then, Ace had passed away saving Luffy" at this, the three Straw Hats jumped but don't interrupt, "and Whitebeard had as well, not before ordering a retreat. Luffy was being carried off the battlefield by Jinbei, but they were attacked by Akainu, who led the marines in striking the retreating pirates."

"That's where Luffy got his scar." Izou nods in agreement, confirming the doctor's suspicion.

"Marco got in between, and eventually, through a joint effort, they carried him all the way to the docks, where Trafalgar Law took both him and Jinbei underwater." Izou comments, "he… missed Ace's funeral while recuperating. I know it was a bit touch and go for a while."

"But wait, Marco didn't go with him, right?"

"No. As the first mate, Marco became the de facto captain of the Whitebeard Pirates."

"Then… how did he and Luffy get into contact?"

"Rayleigh swam to the ship a couple of days after the funeral," Izou explains, remembering the heart attack he'd given the crew as he hauled himself up on deck, shirtless and dripping wet.

"He…" Nami begins, speechless.

"...swam?!" Chopper exclaims.

"Yohohoho! Mister Rayleigh is such a sprite man at his age."

"That is one way of putting it," Izou mutters, "anyway, he said he had a new charge that needed to speak with a Whitebeard pirate. Of course, he meant Luffy, who wanted to pass on his brother's last words to us."

"I imagine Mister Marco was the one who picked up the message," Brook theorizes, and Izou assents.

"They met in Rusukaina and well…"

"They fell in love?" Chopper inquires innocently.

"What? No," Izous laughs in surprise, "they fucked."

"EEEP!" Chopper chokes out. "Just like that?!" he manages to get out from where he's attempting to cover his embarrassment behind his hooves.

"It makes sense, though, if you think about it…" Nami taps a finger to her lip, pondering. "They were both distraught and grieving, and both of them are healthy, attractive men…"

"Stop! Nami, stopppp!" Chopper climbs on the table swiftly in a panic, limbs aggressively gesturing a cutting off motion.

"Fine, fine, jeez, I forgot you're such a little kid," the navigator laughs.

"I'm not!" he rejects, but Nami just bumps his nose and turns to Izou.

"But then, what happened?"

"Well, Marco divided his time between the Moby Dick and Rusukaina for a month, which I hear Rayleigh wasn't a fan of," Izou tells them. "Blackbeard was attempting a hostile takeover of the Whitebeard territories, and we'd been scrambling to fend him off. Eventually, we decided that at the rate it was going, with all of Teach's knowledge of our tactics and logistics, we were tired and disorganized in a war of attrition. We were losing." No matter how long it's been, how rational the way things went. Izou's brothers and sisters were grieving, many of them injured or dead, even more of them struggling to come to terms with all they had been through, "Marco organized an all-out attack to destabilize Teach and his group. He left Luffy in Rusukaina, and even after our defeat, he never went back. He disappeared for a few weeks and popped back up on an island called Sphinx. He lived there until Kaido apparently took him. From what I know, they didn't keep in touch."

"Does that make Marco Luffy's ex-boyfriend?"

And with that question, Monkey D. Luffy himself appears.

"GUYS! The voice comes from outside the hut as Luffy and his entourage spill inside the treehouse," he's as energetic and vibrant as ever, "we made it!"

"Luffy!" All three of the Straw Hat's exclaim, looking at anywhere but at him, guilt catching on to having been discussing their captain's private life all afternoon. Luffy reaches and with impossibly long arms, sandwiches his crew together, squeezing them tightly. As he's shaking them in the air to their cries of laughter and panic, he spots Izou.

"Hey! I know you!" Luffy exclaims, "you're Ace's Nakama! Thanks for all the help last time." His smile is blinding, but his eyes are solemn, and his shoulders straighten as he places his crew back on the ground, much to their joy. "I'm sorry about the old man too." Izou nods, surprisingly touched by the younger teen's condolences.

"I hear it is I who owe you a great debt, Straw Hat," Izou responds, "for what you and your crew have done for Marco."

"Uh-uh," Luffy shakes his head, "don't worry about it. I like Marco." The teen shrugs nonchalantly, he gives the one-bedroom house an overview as if maybe he missed Marco in his excitement; when the raven doesn't spot him, he zeroes on Izou with an unreadable look. "I don't think he'll be happy that you're here," he voices bluntly.

"Luffy!" Nami chides immediately.

"I… noticed," Izou admits reluctantly, unfazed in front of Luffy's honesty after knowing Ace. "He left as soon as he saw me."

"Hmmm," Luffy voices in thought, "where is he?" Izou is about to tell him he doesn't know, but Brook answers him before.

"I believe he might be in the Sunny."

"I see," the young captain says brightly, "well, I'll go see him in a bit. Before that…" he turns away from Izou. "Where's Sanji?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh, so excited, I loved writing this chapter! What do you guys think about Luffy and Marco's past?


	15. Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last time, Izou reveals some of Marco and Luffy's past until Luffy himself arrives at Zou.

Marco doesn't often sleep peacefully, but he's always been a morning person. As a child, he'd set sail on the Moby at the ripe age of eleven, and his days have been so color-filled since then that the inky loneliness from before bleeds into his memories, making them a little fuzzy. So faded, Marco sometimes cannot recall them at all.

He wants to be up.

Wants to and needs to.

He has to go back; Marco cannot just let Izou hanging. His brother has been looking for him for almost a year. The phoenix has allowed everyone who cares about him to think him dead, uncaring the impact of such a thing. He'd been able to justify it before, but his excuses have peeled off, sunburned by the blinding spotlight on Marco's selfishness.

Often, he tries to get up before Luffy and most of the crew, enjoy a bit of the silence on deck and whoever's taking advantage of the misty morning. When the sunlight is cool, the first rays of daylight, that's Marco's favorite part of the day. Sometimes, he'll even make coffee. He rarely has breakfast, something that he knows bothered Luffy's cook, but Marco's been peckish all his life, and ever since he's been rescued, food makes him nauseous in the mornings. (He also cannot starve, so there's that.)

(It's a little surprising, the aching at Sanji's departure.)

Sometimes, he'll pluck some tangerines and watch as Sanji turns the fruits into innumerable recipes, from flower arrangements to garnishes to sauces. Nami always smiles brightest when her tangerines are used, even though she'll then threaten everyone on sight with outrageous prices...

But it's been two days, and Marco hasn't been able to crawl out of bed before noon.

Not that he sleeps.

He just twists and turns and closes his eyes and pleads because everything outside the bed seems too daunting to face. There's nothing concrete in the fear, not really, and staying in bed does not abate his panic. If anything, the unused energy spikes and clutches Marco's inside, rolling his stomach and making him feel like a stranger wearing his skin. Marco doesn't remember ever getting seasick or nauseous, not when his devil fruit has been with him forever but, he imagines by the way his stomach rebels and the hair on his skin stand on end that the experience is similar.

Marco stays in bed, wanting to leave, but doesn't move. Fear presses him down against the mattress, savagely ripping out all of Marco's air, but he cannot move, cannot run because everywhere feels equally tainted, everything just makes him so tired. Marco's dozing, a limbo in between his terrors, existing in a ditch between feeling fear, thinking fear, and confronting fear. It's a dark place.

Slowly, Marco acknowledges that there are creeping fingers climbing his calf. They are sure and unassuming, but the intent they smear on his skin is palpable.

They drag through Marco's blonde leg hair, stopping to pull at the little curls without much thought. Luffy, who barely has any body hair, is always a little fascinated by Marco's. Eventually, the palms tickle the back of his knees and sneak under the kimono Marco's sleeping in. By now, he's mostly awake, but he doesn't want to move. Sure and strong and real, the caress is giving him something to focus on, and Marco belatedly realizes he's been tense when he's shoulders drop naturally. The bed dips a little as Luffy moves to have better access, and Marco, laying on his stomach and cradling his pillow, thinks about opening his eyes. With his cheek pressed against the pillow, he should be able to catch a glimpse as Luffy hovers over him, but Luffy's hands skim past Marco's boxers to scratch at his spine, and Marco decides to let the pirate do as he pleases.

* * *

It's written all over Luffy's face: if Marco doesn't want to do this, he doesn't have to, but Marco does have to, and so he squeezes his hand twice for courage and then leaves for the deck. Luffy gives him one blinding smile before leaving the pair of former Whitebeard Pirates alone, going to nap in the figurehead by the leisure in his step. The rest of the ship is empty of its crew, the Straw Hats reuniting at the backs of the giant elephant.

It's been two days since Marco and Izou encountered each other on Zou, hardly enough for Marco to gather his bearings or have the hopes of concealing his broken pieces from someone who knows him so well. But Luffy needs to leave, and Marco's not letting him enter Big Mom territory without him.

So, he has to do this first, because leaving Izou behind without an explanation is beyond him.

His brother stares long and hard at him as they stand a couple feet apart, and then takes a few, careful steps to hug him. Marco stiffens, unused to unexpected touch, but apparently, Nami's lessons and Luffy's handsiness prove useful in keeping Marco rooted to the spot.

"I'm so glad you're alive, Marco," Izou croaks. The reflex answer of _me too_ sticks in Marco's throat, and he has momentary panic when he realizes he'd be lying.

He hugs Izou back with all he has anyway and thinks he finds comfort there.

* * *

He can hear it as it calls for him. When was the last time Marco saw rain?

Listening to the rain had been one of his chosen pastimes back on the Moby Dick, one of his favorite things of living in a ship, really. The sound it made pelting against the side of the hull, contrasting with the starbursts of lightning that would wake Marco up through the night, they'd lulled him into a drifting dream where he'd be just awake enough to enjoy Mother Nature's cries and rest. Tonight, he's too agitated to lie in bed.

He steps out of the hut he and Luffy are staying in barefooted. The grass is black in the moonlight, but Marco's unmarred feet step through the clearing where the Straw Hats have been set up without much hesitation. After what he's been through, mud and moss are of little concern to him, but they are ice cold as he walks.

Calm rain at sea is almost unheard of, but this is the Grand Line, a place dissociated from the rest of reality's rules. Marco looks up at the waxing moon, so slim that he could almost sit down and count every star. It'd take him forever, and yet, the idea is compelling. _One, two, three, four, five..._

"I'm partial to the rain myself, but perhaps just standing there getting wet isn't very prudent." Robin's voice stems from the porch of her own hut, which if Marco remembers correctly, she shares with Nami. Theirs has an overreaching roof, and she sits just outside her door in a loose black dress. Her hair is pinned up, which baffles him for a moment after always seeing it long and loose.

"You don't actually catch colds from the rain, yoi." It's a myth he's been fighting for ages.

"Still," the archeologist insists, rearranging her legs to huddle closer into the chair. Robin looks softer in the middle of the night. Her knees are curled to her chest and slightly to the side, keeping her feet off the damp grass. She gestures to the companion chair on the other side of the hut's door, both dangerously close to the downpour despite their cover.

"Would it work if I tell you that I cannot get sick?" Her smile is the only answer he needs. He takes cover with her.

Robin doesn't seem curious about why the blonde is awake, but she's a smart woman; Marco has no doubt that she knows. She doesn't ask him about it, maybe because Marco has just as many questions about her.

"Luffy wakes up when I leave to wander, but he never stirs." He voices his thoughts, doubtful that he'll get an answer, but curious enough to give it a try. It's one of the things he counts stars about after all. Maybe if he gets them all, he'll find some wisdom to guide him through this second chance at life he's been granted but doesn't know what to do with. His talk with Izou has been like taking off the scab on a fresh wound, painful and possibly counterproductive. Marco's love for him burns fierce inside him, sparked by the embodiment of _family, _which had become so illusory lately. "I know he wakes up, but he never says anything… Why?"

Robin hums, looking out into the wilderness that extends before them, much beyond the tiny clearing and densely populated foliage surrounding them.

"The captain is a very complex person, though one would hardly think so when you meet him." The Marco, whose first impression of Monkey D. Luffy came via flying warship, would agree, but he's known better for a while. Ever since he saw grief and will cohabit an island, all wrapped up in desire and demand. "Luffy rescued me from Enies Lobby, did you know? After I betrayed his crew."

Marco's starting to see a pattern in how Luffy recruits his crew members. It's very different from how the Moby Dick's crew was formed, with orphans and adventurers begging to join Whitebeard at every port. Marco had been one of them once. Before going too far down memory lane, Nico Robin continues:

"It was an odd moment. The crew was facing off against a feared group of government agents, deep in the heart of the Island of Justice, all of them wanted criminals. The man who had captured me raged on and on, but Luffy only had eyes for me. He told me to say it." She gives Marco a look. It's a mixture of awe and frustration and kinship as if her eyes were asking his soul, _you see, don't you?_ "I knew what he wanted to hear, but the words were stuck in my throat. I thought," at this, her voice heightens as if mimicking an emotion but regretting it half-way through "you're already _here,_ might as well, maybe I can't just let it go." Her blue eyes are looking at him, but Marco doubts she's seeing him. "But that's not how Luffy works. He stood ramrod straight, declared war on the World Government," she breathes in deeply, somewhat focusing on the here and now, "but it wasn't until I asked for help, then, did he move."

"I think I heard something about Enies Lobby, yoi," Marco murmurs nonchalantly, not sure why he's pretending like Ace wouldn't shut up about it for weeks.

"Very few have not," Robin concurs, "About your question… I think that, at a certain level, Luffy is aware of the sway he has over others. It's a dangerous thing. He's always giving people the space to make the right choice."

"The right choice?"

"You're a smart man, Marco," Robin tells him. "You'll figure it out." Before Marco can question her, she changes the subject. "I hear that you'll be traveling with Luffy into Big Mom's territory."

"Argh," Marco looks away, trying to reason with himself as to why he thought it'd be a good idea, "don't remind me."

"Is it to avoid your brother?" she asks without preamble. Marco admires and dislikes her shameless, innate curiosity simultaneously.

"...A little," he admits out loud. Now that the big confrontation is over, Marco is actually happy to be in contact with Izou, but his vibrant brother is just… too much right now. Too much concern and memories and questions that Marco is trying to avoid.

"But," she picks on quickly on Marco's hesitation, "there's something else."

"Before Sanji… left, we had a… disagreement," he hesitates; after all, he hasn't even told Luffy this yet. He examines Robin, looking nothing like a woman on the run for over 25 years and everything like a librarian with a penchant for overworking. He's thought so before, but there is something truly soothing about her presence. "He was upset that I wasn't eating as much as he'd like, and I wasn't in the best of moods… but there was something more."

"Something more?"

"I think… I think there was something else Sanji wanted to tell me, and it's left me with the feeling that I have to know."

"Why not wait for when Luffy brings him back to ask?" She says when and not if.

"I… don't know," it has Marco up thinking in the wee hours of the night after all.

"You're a smart man, Marco," Robin repeats, now with the intonation of someone who's making at least a little fun of him. "You'll figure it out." Marco huffs in response but lets it go.

The phoenix could ask more questions, but instead, they sit in silence until the heavens run dry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh, this conversation with Robin has been in my Bucket List from this story from the beginning. What did you think?


	16. Whole Cake Island I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last time, Luffy supports Marco as he finally confronts Izou in a hurry to accompany Luffy in search of Sanji. After his conversation, he connects with Nico Robin about being left with the burdensome task of choosing to live.

"So, Marco, how are you feeling?" Marco wonders about a pirate being psychologically assessed by a reindeer. He feels like their time is better spent elsewhere, but Chopper insisted on check-in before Marco jumped in headfirst on a delicate rescue operation. Marco has never been in therapy before now. How different the Moby Dick would've been with a Mental Health professional on board. His first reaction to the idea hadn't been... pleasant, but Chopper doesn't make the sessions feel like examinations at all. Marco reminds himself that talking about things is a step in the right direction, even if it sometimes feels like taking ten steps back.

"Overwhelmed, yoi," he admits. Chopper has a folder in his lap, sandwiching some loose sheets of lined paper. It jars Marco a little, but Chopper barely ever writes anything down and never when Marco expects him to. The phoenix believes the reindeer purposely writes down bits and pieces at random intervals precisely so that Marco doesn't feel exposed, but honestly, the less he thinks about it, the better.

"It's understandable, you've had an unexpected couple of days."

Big Mom's ship, Sanji's departure, Izou's arrival...

Yeah, unexpected is one way of summing it up.

(Marco feels like it's a good day if he's mustering annoyance and worry instead of sinking deep in the numbness. Some days, no matter what happens, it all goes down to being so fucking tiring.)

"Do you think I'm getting better, yoi?" he queries out loud. He thinks the question might come as a surprise, but Chopper is unmoved. He raises a hoof to his lips, thinking about it.

"Hmmm," he voices, meeting Marco's eyes in patient curiosity, "do you?"

"Somedays," he shrugs. _Today, _for example, "but, medically speaking, is this… am I… getting better?" Once again, he thinks Chopper will press for his answer, now that Marco's avoided the question, but the doctor is graceful about his dismissal.

"I believe you're doing well, considering the short amount of time since Punk Hazard," he states, "and also, we've discussed how healing is not a linear process. There are some days better than others, and that's expected. The important thing is that you take it easy and ask for help when you need it."

"Right." It's a good answer, just not the answer Marco wants.

"How about this week? How do you feel about everything's that's going on?"

"I... things with Izou were... good," he admits hesitantly," better than... better than I thought it would go, I guess."

"He loves you a lot." The comment hits Marco right where it hurts, and he bites his lip.

"Does he... know?"

"Do you think it would be any different if he did?" _Yes _is the immediate answer, but Marco closes his mouth before it can escape him.

_Would it?_

Marco thinks about Izou's desperate hug, about his gentle words, and about his willful discretion. He didn't ask Marco about Punk Hazard, Sphinx, or being off the radar once, not even about Luffy. Instead, he filled the silence between them with his own journeys, slowly filling Marco in on all their remaining siblings, scattered as they are.

"...Maybe," he settles on.

"Why do you think so?"

_I made him worry, _which really is nothing new, and Marco knows such a thing is impossible to avoid in a family.

_I... let Sphinx burn? _But did he? Marco still hasn't mustered the courage to check on Pop's hometown.

_I lost. _Not an outcome Whitebeard Pirates are unfamiliar with lately.

_I'm..._

"I'm... different now, yoi." Marco thinks about Big Mom's ship, the splintering of his self-control, a desperate possessive feeling of _no _and _not again. _Marco doesn't recognize or trust himself.

"Would you care if it was him?"

"No."

Chopper doesn't comment on his quick response. Aware that Marco can figure out his own faulty logic. _Annoying._

"Do you think I'm bad for Luffy?" Marco looks for Chopper's response, surprised by his own question.

"What do you mean?"

"Do you think I make him unhappy? Or, or make his life worse?"

"Do you think that?"

"Yes," because there's no way flaky, moody, traumatized Marco makes Luffy _happy, _which leaves only the alternative. What Luffy liked about Marco: his courage, his... confidence, his _strength _are things Marco doesn't have anymore. "Things were different before."

"Before?"

"When Luffy and I met." Marco hadn't meant to keep his and Luffy's previous... relationship (?) secret; it just hadn't come up. "We, eh, were... something... for a moment."

"I see."

"And things were different, yoi." He tries to explain the stark difference between Marco then and Marco now, but he's not sure how to phrase it. "I'm different."

And it all keeps coming back to that, doesn't it?

"Different doesn't mean bad, Marco."

"I'm tired and cranky all the time. I'm always making everyone worry. I refuse to interact with people, even my family. I get terrified of memories and ghosts that aren't there. I can't fight. I'm just..." _broken. _That's what it feels like, like there's something irrevocably wrong with Marco that he has no idea how to _fix. _"How could I possibly be good for someone? Luffy's always smiling and moving forward and inspiring people, and... how am I... how am I supposed to keep up with him?"

"It's already happening, I'd say," Chopper tells him. "Have you considered that these things that you're worried about Luffy and other people thinking, that these are thoughts that you have of yourself?"

Marco opens his mouth to say, _of course, _and then closes it. Opens it again and finds that no words come out. He breathes, feeling choked all of a sudden, like there's not enough air. He toys with the fuzzy blanket Chopper keeps in the infirmary and tries to even out his breaths.

"But it's true," he protests weakly.

"I don't think Luffy thinks you make him unhappy," the doctor continues, "does he look unhappy when he's with you?"

"No, yoi, but, maybe, sometimes he thinks..."

"Marco, do you truly believe Luffy could keep any of those thoughts to himself?"

"No," _not at all, really... _"But, what if, what if the people that care about him know?"

"Marco, do you truly believe anyone can tell Luffy what to do?"

"No, but what if they're right, though?"

"In you making Luffy unhappy?"

Marco doesn't even know anymore. He's tired now, and confused, and upset. He understands how silly he sounds, but it makes _sense _in his head. There's no way anyone finds him pleasant to be around right, Marco himself doesn't want his own company.

"...Not even I want to be around me."

"Yet you garden with Nami and Usopp regularly. And play card games with Brook." Chopper smiles at him, shyly, "I happen to enjoy your company. I like discussing my medical theories, and Traffy is super scary." That does pull a little chuckle out of Marco.

"Marco, I think you're scared about others seeing you the way you see yourself. That, I think, is what we should talk about during these sessions." Marco takes in the words, but he has a little trouble wrapping his head around them. "So next time, I want you to focus not on what other people think about you and what you've been through, but in what _you _think about yourself and what you've been through, okay?"

Marco promises to _try _at least.

Before that, though, he needs to survive Whole Cake Island.

* * *

"Mmm... Marco," Luffy mumbles when the blonde scratches his hair. There's something about people when they sleep, some vulnerability that cannot be achieved when awake, that Marco's often wondered about. He likes sleep on Luffy. It makes him more young man and less superhuman wonder, more reachable for Marco to grasp and keep.

"We've docked, Luffy, it's time to go." Electrocuting him wouldn't have worked as well. In one jump, Luffy is out of the bed and running for the door. "You're shirtless!" Marco calls out amused, smiling as Luffy groans as he walks back into the cabin.

He rustles through his cabinets to look for a clean shirt since Marco took the one he was wearing last night to the laundry. He stops in his movements, maybe his brain catching up to his body because he suddenly looks at Marco.

"Marco," he intones seriously. It immediately puts Marco on edge. Did something happen? Did Marco do something?

"Yes?" he prompts.

"Promise me you'll stay out of the fighting." Marco frowns. If their plan works, there should be no fighting at all, but the former first mate knows the odds of such a thing are nonexistent. He's not too confident in his ability to fight, but he trusts his ability to let Luffy die a lot less.

(Not that Luffy would die, of course not. Marco is definitely not entertaining that line of thinking. Not even a little.)

"I..."

"Promise me."

_Ah,_ Marco realizes looking at Luffy, _this isn't one of those "choice" moments._

It leaves Marco with a bad taste in his mouth and a million questions, but Luffy has never really asked for anything. Marco steels himself.

"Okay."

It turns out to be so much harder than he ever thought it could be, but Marco only cheats a little.

* * *

Cracker is originally disheartening, but quickly turns comical. Only Luffy wins a fight because he's able to out-eat a Sweet General. Sanji's struggle, though, resonates with Marco in a way he cannot ignore.

"Marco!" Luffy's face is covered in blood, swelling rapidly, and something in Marco is screaming. Unlike Ace, Marco's Devil Fruit hardly reacts to his violent moods, but this time, the wall of flames climbing through his back is intentional. The rush out of him in a showier pyromaniac spectacle that Marco maintains so that they may reach Luffy behind him. The younger captain may be okay with getting the crap beaten out of him, but Marco has had enough.

"Listen to your captain, _phoenix," _Sanji sneers, a gesture so out of character that Marco almost finds it humorous if there wasn't pure anger poisoning his system.

"What were you going to tell me?" Marco narrows his eyes, refusing to budge.

"Nothing of consequence," the cook dismisses, but his eyes shift just beyond Marco, and he disguises the guilt by pulling out a cigarette.

"I thought you were angry about the food at first, too," the phoenix presses, "wasting food is your thing, Luffy told me. But I don't think so." What Marco's wanted to ask crystalizes itself in his mind as he speaks the words. "I think you're worried about him. I think you're the only person on your ship who's thinking what it's going to do to him if I really do slip too far." It sounds like an accusation, strange when it relates to caring about someone. "Don't you, Sanji?"

"Shut up, I don't…"

"...associate with dirty pirates? I heard you, yoi." Marco gives him a smile that is all teeth, Punk Hazard, and Payback War. The look of one who has rejected family and friends and love, more than once. Marco knows now what he came looking for. "We both know I can keep you and all your little clones right here if I wanted to," Sanji seems to sink lower, gearing up to fight him. Gutsy, at least, if nothing else, "...but I won't."

There's a spark in Sanji baffled eyes, all bark, and no bite. It reminds Marco about plenty of his little brothers; they could be stubborn idiots too.

"I don't need your pity," the cook grounds out, biting down his cigarette down to a stub, "I'm going to a better life, stop acting as if I'm suffering or in pain! I'm perfectly fine!" Sanji yells at him, but now that Marco has recognized the guilt in his eyes, he cannot unsee it. "And the sooner that blockheaded boyfriend of yours gets it, the fucking better!"

"I'm starting to see how Luffy does things, you know," Marco whispers, letting his flames recede and allowing Luffy to pass him by, "and from someone who's sailed with him for so long, I cannot believe you can't see it too."

He picks up on Sanji's pain, his guilt, and his shiny golden cuffs, but he keeps quiet. Luffy will do as he pleases, and maybe, through his hunger vow and his promise, Marco is getting a glimpse of the choices Nico Robin was talking about. When Luffy reminds him to butt out of his adventure as the Charlotte children storm the field, Marco expects to be hurt and hesitant, but instead, he sees Ace and Pops and Oden hiding in the curves of Luffy's brows and the shadows under his jaw. So many people Marco has loved and respected seem to live on; carried onto the new era on thin, juvenile shoulders. Luffy has certainly earned Marco's faith, and so, as requested, he flies back to the Sunny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think, out of all the chapters, this one might be my least fave... :(
> 
> What did you think?
> 
> Note that the number of chapters has increased from 17 to 19, which means we technically only have 3 more chapters to go (what?!)
> 
> This was originally going to be 10 chapters and now it's basically doubled... like, how?
> 
> anyways, 
> 
> much love,   
dee


	17. Whole Cake Island II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last time, Marco ponders on his inner demons with Chopper on their way to Whole Cake Island. When the crew meets Sanji, Marco seems to understands some of his pain, but eventually is urged by Luffy back to the Sunny.

If Luffy's arms actually do come off, Nami is going to _die. _She needs to distract him, and she needs to distract him _fast._

"This might be the weirdest moment in history to ask this, but..." she murmurs to herself, avoiding looking at Luffy's contorted form. "Oi, Luffy?"

"What?" her captain barks out as he twists his arms again and again.

"How come you never told anyone that you dated Marco?" It's a little comical how the teen loses his footing, twisting at least a hundred times in the air before slamming against the wall. He immediately looks up at Nami with wondering eyes. _Bingo._

"Namiii!" he whines, "how do you know that? Is that a mystery power?" Nami's tempted to make him believe she's omniscient, if only for the laughs, but there are some things she actually wants to know.

"Izou said something about it before you got to Zou,"

"Oh, Ace's Nakama, I see." _Ace's, _not Marco's.

"So?"

"What?"

"Why didn't you tell us?"

Honestly, Nami's expecting a reaction similar to when she'd first seen Ace. Some really dismissive, _oh, it never came up, shishishi. _Instead, this is what Luffy answers, voice serious:

"I... forgot," he's frowning and puffing out his lips, Luffy-speak for _this is total bullshit, and even I'm aware of it._

"What?" There is no way that's true. She stares at Luffy, and her captain stares back stubbornly. It takes a moment, but in the end, his impatience runs out, and he deflates against the wall. Thankfully, his intentions of breaking himself apart to escape have been curved for the time being.

"That's what I'm supposed to do," he explains softly.

"You're supposed to forget?" Nami echoes, puzzled at such a strange declaration.

"Yeah, that's what Marco told me."

* * *

Katakuri steps off the mirror-world into the so-called Thousand Sunny. Despite the ruckus the Straw Hats have made on Whole Cake Island and the epic shit show they've unleashed, going to crush them doesn't feel any different than squishing any other uppity bug that's come after his family. Katakuri has never been particularly attached to his mother, not to her person or her flaky ambitions, but many little brothers and sisters do matter to him. They're his blessing, coming in to give him a reason to keep going, and his curse, keeping him tied down to the way life has continued to be.

Perosperos follows him in, looking over the small rooms in distaste.

"What an amateur mistake, leaving their ship unattended," his older brother mutters, "I cannot believe they've given us so much trouble, perore."

It might be triggered by his brother's words, but Katakuri's vision is quick to prove the contrary. The door to deck opens, a figure cast in shadow but unmistakeable nonetheless. How long ago was it since Katakuri met Marco the Phoenix? It could've easily been ten-years. Rumors about the former Whitebeard Pirates run rampant; they've become a little like ghosts. Some say their defeat has made them merciless and bloodthirsty, others that they're weak and defeated. He looks at Marco's lazy, blue stare, unmoved by two of Big Mom's best fighters boarding his ship... Wait.

"Marco the Phoenix?" Perospero exclaims in surprise, narrowing his eyes in confusion. "What are you doing here?"

"It's a little ballsy of you to ask that, isn't it? You're the ones uninvited." A deflection if Katakuri's ever heard one. Despite his words, Marco stands on the doorway, making no move to attack the pirates. "I imagine it'll mean little if I ask you to turn around from whence you came from."

"Indeed," Katakuri surmises.

"What are you planning to do here? Where are Luffy and the others?"

"Mama is going after them, we're just here as a precaution."

"...I see," the man seems to be going over his choices. Katakuri doesn't think the Phoenix can possibly take them both, but he's also pretty sure that if he's anything like Katakuri saw him last, it's also not going to be easy to put him down. His Devil Fruit is an annoying business. "Are you going to do anything to the ship?"

Katakuri and Perospero exchange a look.

"...We were going to take this mirror out to deck," Katakuri answers him; Marco's eyes light up.

"That's how you came in, then."

It's one of the strangest stand-off's Katakuri has ever being a part of. The air is tight and suffocating but somewhat civil? Like looking down a precipice, not entirely aware of how long the way down is, and having little interest in finding out. Marco seems to be looking down on them, and it reminds Katakuri a little that this man inherited the throne of an Emperor. (Lost it, too.) Katakuri's confident he can take him, but he also knows that underestimating the other pirate is a mistake. It will take quite a lot to put the Phoenix down. Other than making the first aggressive move, none of the futures he can see end up with the Phoenix attacking the pair of Big Mom Pirates. A strange notion.

"You don't plan to attack us," Katakuri reflects out loud.

"That Haki of yours is annoying," the former first-mate mutters but doesn't deny it.

_Oh._

"I promised Luffy to stay out of his fights," the man shrugs, "this ship, though, is off-limits. Put a scratch on it, and my promise is off." With that, Marco takes a step back, grins at them as if _wishing for them to dare him, _and flies up to curl around the roof of the crow's nest. His bird form is so big that his tail feathers fall down the side of the small chamber, blue and golden tresses swaying in the wind. The look in his eye is dangerous.

"What the fuck is up with that kid, perore." Katakuri doesn't answer the other's comment, but he whole-heartedly agrees. He wonders if the Phoenix will do something if they bring in more soldiers, but decides to not try it. He and Perosperos are enough for the rookies, and the foot soldiers will be useless against the Phoenix anyway. "No way he'll let us put the candy block around it?" Katakuri gives him a flat stare. "Thought so. I'm sure Mama will get them." That's how they stay until chaos finds them, Perospero and Katakuri on deck under the sharp gaze of a firebird. Katakuri hums.

What a strange day.

* * *

Marco, still inside the Sunny, bides his time, feels his heart pound furiously against his chest. He's genuinely concerned about hyperventilating and passing out because he recognizes the people out there. None of the bravadoes he'd piled on himself during the way to Whole Cake island stays with him, like an unfed cat, it flees.

_Take care of the Sunny for me, will you?_

The Phoenix retreats up into the crow's nest, his heart is shaking as he wonders were all the rabidity that possessed him last time he met Big Mom pirates went. He's taken on his bird form because it is a lot harder to read. Marco's slipping. He can't breathe. Marco can't breathe.

_Take care of the Sunny for me, will you?_

Marco holds on to his promise with everything he has; he keeps sharp eyes on the invading pirates, something in him eating away at his heart from how close they are to the tangerine trees. Marco hopes this can resolve itself without fighting, but he's not stupid enough to really believe it. He wonders what he will do if it comes down to it.

_Take care of the Sunny for me, will you?_

* * *

On his whole way to Whole Cake Island, Marco said he was overwhelmed.

Watching the Sunny invasion is all of his despair, insecurities, and nightmares rolled into one. When Chopper and Brook arrive, the situation takes a turn for the worst. Perospero offers to let them go, but Marco knows Luffy's crew much too well by now. They will never abandon the Sunny or her captain. He watches them fight and twist themselves around the pirate captain, while he and Katakuri keep each other in check.

A thunderstorm materializes itself in the distance. Marco deduces that Nami must be involved from what the navigator's told him, though she'd failed to mention that her climate tact could work on such a scale. It bleeds some hope into him that the crew isn't far. Just when Chopper and Brook finally go down to Perospero, Marco realizes he's going to have to jump in, after all, Luffy and the rest break-in. Is that... Jinbei with them? Luffy immediately clashes with Katakuri, and Marco lowers himself to the railings on deck. Closer just in case something happens.

"Marco?" Jinbei exclaims, and Marco chirps in response.

The crew is distracted; how can they not be? Marco is quickly swept into helping Jinbei with the Coup de Burst. He almost misses it with everything going on, but Marco's hyper-aware of Luffy at all times. When the other man grabs Charlotte Karakuri by the face and throws him through the mirror, Marco moves fast enough that the shards of it being destroyed from the inside hit him in the face. The cuts heal instantly, but he does have to pull one fragment out of his eye. _How nostalgic._ Marco looks at the broken mirror, detached from reality, a flame caresses his face, washing away the blood, and the mirror isn't the only thing that breaks.

Whatever fear or self-control keeping Marco calm snaps. He jumps in between Perospero and Pedro, uncaring of whatever battle they're trying to have.

"I thought you weren't going to fight, Phoenix?" Perosperos doesn't look at all happy, even as the Sunny is steadily surrounded by all sides. Big Mom is most definitely on her way, but Marco cannot even think about any of that. Luffy's call, his promise to come back, Marco's promise to him... it's all muddling itself in his mind. Marco's so fucking tired. Tired of Whole Cake Island, Marineford, Punk Hazard... Marco never wanted to be a warrior; he only wanted to stay with the people he loved. Why does it always go down this way? He shifts, turning upside down, grasping the floor so a sharp talon can swoop up and slap Perospero across the face. The man blocks with his cane, but Marco's clawed feet pull on to the bar, leaving him wide open for Marco to pull himself off the floor to punch him in the face. The first thing he does as Perospero stumbles back is snatching his cane and throwing it at sea. He looks down at the Big Mom Pirates, chest heaving in rage.

"Where is he?" Marco mutters out, more beast than man, as he watches the Charlotte eldest with all the repulsion he can muster, Perospero might look like a children's book ill-drawn nightmare, but he has been around as long as Marco has. He won't go down smoothly. Something in the back of Marco's mind is screaming, watching Luffy disappear through the mirror again and again. Why didn't he reach him faster?

"Peros? Straw Hat, you mean?" The man cleans off some blood dripping down his check from whatever tooth Marco felt crack under his fist.

"He took Katakuri through the mirror, yoi, _where is he?" _The Phoenix hears himself speak, but it's more like watching someone else demand answers through his body.

"They're in Brulee's world, and if Katakuri went through with him well, probably dead, perore." The eldest Charlotte child answers, sparing the broken mirror nary a glance. "It's about time for his merienda, so I'm sure he'll be quick about it."

It's the wrong thing to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was so hard to write, and I have no idea why guys. Pedro lives, though! Which wasn't planned at all; literally just didn't make sense for him to die with Marco there.
> 
> I don't know if I've said this, but we have like - two chapters left, which is insane.
> 
> Also, for any WWW, I have a new thing coming your way, one more romantic oneshot that's been taking over my heart the last two days. Any guesses as to who it's about? ;)
> 
> I'm specially fond of the Nami and Luffy scene of today, though I'm not too sure why. Thoughts?
> 
> take care,
> 
> dee


	18. Victory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last time, the Sunny struggles to escape Big Mom territory as Marco faces off with Perosperos, triggered by Luffy's decision to take and fight Katakuri alone.

Brook has conversed with Mister Marco plenty of times. Some about very pleasant things and other times about very somber ones. Overall, he thinks Marco is a man in pain, from many things really, but mostly, he pains _himself. _Brook knows a little about that, and so he doesn't mention it. Telling someone that they are their own demon doesn't really accomplish much; treating them like a human, though... that can have the right effect. He's heard about the last time Marco fought the Big Mom Pirates. Nami had told all of them enough, much to Chopper's concern.

_We do not keep secrets in this crew, Chopper._

Her analysis had been truthful. Marco was, as his bounty poster assured, _incredibly strong, scarily so. _His fear of conflict, though, his inconsistent approach to fighting, was concerning. It means that, according to Nami, Marco would most definitely fight in Whole Cake Island.

_He'll definitely pull you out of a pinch._

Brook watches it and despite hearing about it beforehand, seeing the gentle, shy man explode in a flurry of blue fire and violence is still baffling. He's crossed blades with the Candyman briefly before, teaming up with Chopper even, and they'd been decidedly outclassed. Marco _toys _with him, eyes carrying with them blue incandescent shadows that trail blazes across the Sunny. Brook realizes Marco's heating temper _before_ noticing that his captain is gone.

It's not the last time of the trip where Brook is incredibly thankful for the pirate, but watching the Charlotte eldest turn tail and fleeing Sunny in a candy island is definitely a thrilling endeavor. (Brook is much too old to envy youth but decidedly aware enough that his training needs to be heightened. The New World continues to surprise them at every turn. Brook shivers as to their fates had they not being separated back in Sabaondy for all the pain it caused.)

Mister Marco may be his own demon, but there are edges to him, new ones and rough ones, but they are developing in the right direction. Through the decades, this truth has remained unchanged: healing is never pretty.

* * *

Sanji knows, everyone around him does probably, that the giant, bloodthirsty phoenix is the one who should rescue Luffy. He knows it; it's the _right thing to do, the smart thing. _But Sanji's heart is more on display than ever these days, and it will not let the odd feeling in his chest alone. It itches and itches and itches, and Sanji's always been a stubborn guy.

"I'll get him and fly off, meet you at sea," Marco states. Perosperos had finally abandoned the Sunny after holding on through the Coup de Burst, only after Marco's talons had left him without an arm. The crew is hardly out of peril, and Luffy... The sharp glint that appeared in Marco, a dangerous thing threatening to crack the surface, hasn't wavered since the mirror broke. Sanji knows his suggestion is the ideal solution; his mouth opens up anyways.

_I cannot believe you can't see it too._

"Let me go," Sanji cuts in; he's catching Marco's eye meaningfully. The phoenix's first reaction is taking it as a warning, ruffling all of Marco's feathers at once as they manifest at his neck and down his shirt. Sanji adds quickly: "I… I owe it to him."

Marco's tense but allows it. Sanji's not sure why he asks for permission; it's odd.

He waits in an alley, heart in his throat, and watches Pekoms emerge with Luffy. Before anything more can occur, Sanji's moving. They cut it so close Sanji doesn't even blink when blue fire opens the way for them. He's seen it before, but Marco, in his bird form, is truly immense. His confidence in the air is unparalleled with Sanji's or any of their persecutors. It's no perfect or easy, but they make it.

* * *

Compared to the raging storm of Big Mom's rage as Sunny cuts through wave after wave of impossibilities, the bright day that greets Luffy's naming as an honorary Emperor can be seen as either mocking or rewarding. Marco would bet on both. Luffy and Chopper are fishing, fulfilling Sanji's wishes of having a banquet to celebrate their captain's accomplishment.

Marco's congratulated Luffy already, but the words taste like ash in his mouth, and he's not sure why. It's not that Luffy doesn't deserve being closer to his dream; it is that Marco can still see the bandages wrapped all around him and can still hear the sound of Cracker smacking Luffy into the ground, the cracking of the mirror. Luffy took Charlotte Katakuri down, which is absolutely insane to anyone who doesn't know him, but at what cost?

To Marco, at least, a fancy title doesn't make up for any of those things.

"Do you ever have second thoughts about joining Luffy?" The question grabs Marco by surprise. Though by Jinbei's faraway look, maybe it shouldn't. The Fishman has been slightly taciturn, still in wait for an update on his crew. Marco, feeling the decided negativity accumulated through the past few days beat within him, wisely chooses to keep his opinions and predictions to himself.

"I haven't joined him," Marco denies. Jinbei raises an eyebrow conveying how unimpressed he is but budges to Marco's stubbornness.

"I'm sure you can tell what I mean."

"...Sometimes," it feels like treason, but it doesn't make it any less real. "I've met so many men like him, Jinbei. Men who were special and fated, beacons of this era, foundations of families and revolutions. People I considered family and friends. None of them met a nice end."

"You think Luffy might end like that?"

"I try to think he won't, but Ace, Roger, Whitebeard, Oden… I thought them all impossible to be brought down once too; it'd be foolish to ignore overwhelming evidence like that." He leans back on the railing, zeroing on Luffy's back as it shakes with laughter where he's perched on the other side of the Sunny. "Luffy will definitely change the world irrevocably; he is doing so already." Had been, ever since the instant Marco knew of him. "I wouldn't be surprised if he becomes Pirate King, but at what cost, Jinbei? At what cost?" Marco's voice implores, but his companion has no solace to offer. The Fishman looks at him, maybe agreeing, maybe contemplating the entire idea for the first time. "I also think… that Luffy deserves someone who believes in him fully, and I… don't know if I can do that."

Marco doubts it's the answer Jinbei was looking for, but it's the only one Marco can give.

* * *

After dinner, after the sun has set, Luffy's hungry. Marco recognizes it in the depth of his eyes, perhaps the first emotion he really learns to pick out of Luffy, for convenience if nothing else.

He might've been pleasantly surprised, but Luffy is no idiot; he knows what the newspaper article means and caught in the absolute rush of victory. He is a conqueror out for riches and undiscovered lands. Marco is the target, an undiscovered country to lay claim to again and again. This might be what Marco loves, really. He always feels selfish with Luffy. Marco wants every intake of sharp breath as he runs hands from the hollow of his feet to the back of his ears. He delights in stretching the supple, well-built muscle—a biological engineering, magical wonder that carries Luffy from battlefield to battlefield.

However, tonight, Marco is selfish in a different way because it's Luffy who wishes to take. He's playful but direct, pushing Marco up against the hallway as the other goes to bed. He'll carry him and take him right there if Marco lets him, concepts like propriety and shame well beyond his grasp on a regular occasion, much less when his eyes look like this, merciless in their desire. Marco will direct him to the bedroom... in a minute. First, he enjoys how Luffy presses him against the wall, so hard and encompassing Marco half expects the wood to creak. His hips trap Marco's own, a delicious warmth wrapping around his spine.

He latches on to Marco's bare throat, straight for the spot that makes him sigh, coaxing a moan from the back of his throat as he nips where Marco's neck meets his jaw. It's tantalizing how good Luffy had gotten at this when he came to be in Marco's hands untouched. The movement is seamless, a choreography of limbs groped and grasped to the beat of two stuttering heartbeats. Running a hand through raven lucks, he pulls Luffy's head back, away from him, to meet his eager mouth. Marco doesn't feel like it's been long enough for the way heat pulls at his bellybutton.

Luffy's lips are rough on him, slightly chapped and tasting like salt from a day out being caressed by the sea breeze. His coarse locks are entwined from where Marco pulls at his skull with abandon. His body reacts in all the right moments, in all the right ways, but Marco's wandering hands snatch on a bandage, and whatever mirror image of victory Luffy is trying to brand into his skin shatters. Marco freezes, and Luffy, hyperaware of every single raised hair of Marco's arm, stills as well.

"Marco," he whines needily, stepping back to look up at him through hazy eyes, his frowning lightly, gaze roaming the phoenix as if he could determine what has put a stop to their activities. "What's up?"

_I'm not in the mood, _is a reasonable thing to say.

_It's just been a long day,_ is also passable.

_Nothing, kiss me_, is unadvisable but also highly non-conflictive.

Instead, this is what comes out of Marco's mouth:

"I'm angry."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I thought we'd be wrapping up by chapter 19 but it doesn't look like that. I'm not sure how many more chapters we have left, hopefully only a couple. Remember when I said that this would be, like, 10 chapters long?
> 
> ...Yeah, me too. Thank you for all the support. Enjoy the cliffy :D
> 
> Active stories with regular updates:
> 
> \- J&F (MaLu, Marine Luffy, 30chapters so far)
> 
> \- TWAQ (BakuDeku, Villain Deku, 5/8 chapters, part of a series.)
> 
> \- WoSA (WWW Universe, 12chapters.)


	19. Forget It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last time: _As Luffy seduces Marco, the phoenix is unable to turn off his anger at the other's reckless behavior._

Ace's brother, Marco thinks, looks tired. Exhausted with deep bags beneath his eyes and pale. It hasn't stopped Rayleigh from beating him into the dirt, apparently. The air in Rusukaina is warm and humid. If Marco's body temperature didn't self-regulate to inhuman degrees, he'd be soaked through with sweat. As it is, he only feels mildly oppressed upon arrival on the island, like the air is pushing at him as he makes his way across the jungle following the yelling.

It's the first time Marco's away from the Moby since the War.

The feeling leaves him restless, but he needs to know what Ace's brother wishes to share, and the phoenix is the best-equipped for such a long trip. He'd thought about turning back more than once, living true to his ever-hounding nickname of being a mother hen, but everything just feels so fleeting right now, as if one good gust of wind would blow all the ashes left far away from Marco's grasp. He's not sure how much more loss he can withstand.

(More than he could ever imagine he'd come to learn.)

He makes noise purposely as he arrives at the clearing. First, he makes eye contact with Rayleigh, who nods to him in greeting. He stills where he holds the stick, poised to strike the younger pirate once more in the head. With a somewhat disappointed sigh, he withdraws.

"Okay, Luffy," he steps back, letting his makeshift weapon rest against a nearby tree, "come find me when you're done."

The raven swivels around at the sound of his voice.

"Huh? Rayleigh?" The Straw Hat's captain takes off the blindfold, not catching sight of his teacher, Rayleigh's back lost amongst the crowding trees. Luffy turns around the other way, finally spotting Marco. "Oh," he voices, "you're Ace's Nakama. The cool mystery bird, hi."

"My name is Marco," he corrects, feeling out of his depth. He's not usually _Ace's Nakama _to strangers; it's... odd. Mildly pleasant considering the circumstances. The blonde looks the younger man over and recognizes the way grief weighs him down. He's simultaneously thankful and ungrateful about his inability to do the same, wear his heart so viscerally on his sleeve that even a stranger could tell.

"I'm Luffy," he introduces himself. It's vaguely redundant, not that the other knows just how much his older brother spoke of him. It's almost surreal meeting Monkey D. Luffy after hearing so much about him. "The man who is going to be King of Pirates." _Ah, _this, Marco knows too.

"You say that a lot, yoi," he comments mildly, perhaps stalling the pending conversation. Luffy shrugs and laughs, offering Marco a guileless smile.

"It's the truth."

* * *

Luffy's brain is not that good with feelings - other people's that is - he has little issue sorting through and acting on his own. The young captain knows that he and Marco don't think the same way and that sometimes, Marco has feelings that Luffy thinks are a little silly. But! If they're important to Marco, Luffy tries to think about them too.

He'd been enjoying Marco's hands on his skin, mind already halfway through the night to the things he wanted to try, the ones he wanted to repeat. He's been feeling the heat all day. _Frisky _Robin told him, _horny _Nami corrected teasingly. Whatever it was, Luffy had wanted Marco since the moment he'd woken up. Putting a stop to the plan to talk about feelings grabs him by surprise, but Luffy does his best to pay attention.

"What are you angry about?" Luffy doesn't step back, his breath ghosting over Marco's collarbone, exposed from where he's unbuttoned shirt has slid off a smooth shoulder. Marco's eyes fall close; he looks pained and unhappy. It sends sparks of distaste down Luffy's spine. He wills himself to hold still and not shake Marco for answers, but his grip does tighten around his wrists. "Is it at me?"

The answer comes through reluctantly and hesitantly, and Luffy has the very weird impression that Marco doesn't actually want to talk to him. He tries to think if he did something mean today, but nothing really comes to mind.

"Shit," Marco groans but then nods jerkily. "Yeah. I'm angry at you, yoi." Luffy nods, still plenty confused and ignorant as to why but immediately looks into Marco's eyes and offers:

"I'm sorry."

He's earnest about the apology, but he's honest enough to admit to himself that he hopes that's it. Maybe the apology will make Marco not mad at him, and they can resume where they left off.

It doesn't go like that.

Marco freezes, and his previously hesitant eyes narrow, pinning Luffy down with his entire focus.

"Do you even know what you're apologizing for?

"No?"

Luffy knows immediately, by the way that Marco shakes off his grip, that it's the wrong thing to say. It's like when he was back in Mount Colbo, and he'd lose against a giant alligator. The slow, terrible realization that he would get eaten again and Ace and Sabo would have to cut him out. "But I'm sorry," he adds quickly, "I didn't mean to make you angry."

And Luffy really, really didn't.

Marco's features soften, but even so, Luffy frowns. Marco looks so sad.

"I... appreciate the sentiment, Luffy, but I don't think you're sorry." Luffy jumps, raising his voice without thought.

"Hey, no! I'm sorry, I said I'm sorry!"

"Can you really regret it if you don't even know what you did?"

"Ehhhh, yes. Definitely," Luffy nods enthusiastically. He knows this because he didn't mean to make Marco this sad, and if he did, he's sorry for whatever he did that caused it.

"...Right." Marco doesn't look reassured, and Luffy grows frustrated with the conversation.

"Why are you sad then?" He pats himself in the back for this one. When Marco tells him, Luffy just needs to make sure to not do it again. Marco's lips pull down, his forehead burrowing in three small rolls of absolute annoyance (Luffy would know.)

"I don't think it's fair for me to be angry at you over this, Luffy."_ Oh damn,_ a new layer to the emotions cake. Luffy hopes Chopper can also explain this one. He's learned people cannot control their emotions, and so Luffy carefully does not respond that with: _then don't be._

"But you are?"

"Yes... yes, but I... I think this is a _me_ problem. Forget I said anything, okay?"

Marco must also remember swiftly when he used those words because he cuts himself off from adding anything else.

_Just... forget this ever happened, okay?_

Suddenly, something in Luffy _boils. _He doesn't recognize the feeling at first, but it comes to him.

Luffy's angry.

"You always say that," he accuses, finally taking a step back. Suddenly, he doesn't want to be all over Marco anymore. His hands ball into fists, and he hides his semblance under the shadow of his straw hat. "I don't like it."

"I didn't mean it like that, Luffy, I just... meant not to worry about me being upset more..." It's disorienting how quickly their roles have changed. The hallway shrinking, not enough space for their anger and them both.

"Like I was supposed to 'not worry' last time?"

"No, what happened before... Luffy, it..."

"Right, because it would've been fine if it didn't happen. You could go off, and I wouldn't have to worry? Right. Cool."

"Luffy, I'm not talking about this right now."

"I forgot about it anyway." It's what Marco asked for; there is no reason - _none - _for the words to make him flinch. It's also not true.

"Luffy..."

"Do you know how much I didn't have to worry?"

(Traffy told Luffy that he was impressed with him, at his _patience._

_It's not easy helping people like Phoenix-ya. It can be frustrating to help someone who doesn't want help. _

Luffy hadn't given it much thought then. Marco is Marco, and Luffy wants him to be okay. Luffy wants him to laugh and fly and tickle him and tell him stories. He wants him under him, flushed and wanton, feeling so much like healing fire under Luffy's fingertips, filling in the flesh's ways of hunger.

Helping Marco isn't _hard; it_ wouldn't be fair if it was. Marco's trying his best; Luffy knows him. Why would he get angry? It'd be dumb. But he suddenly understands a little Marco's misplaced anger because Luffy knows all these things, but fury thrums through his veins anyway.)

He thinks he's been angry for a long time, but he's not sure why he realizes just now. The words bubble up like vomit, and they make him seasick.

"Marco... I thought you were _dead."_

A sharp intake of breath is taken as Marco pales.

Even weeks later, with dozens of memories of Marco - both good and bad - to replace the image, the older pirate hanging in the Punk Hazard's laboratory is still burned behind Luffy's eyelids.

The blood, the whimpering, the eye.

_The screw._

"Forgetting didn't change anything, and I thought I'd found you only to have one more person I care about die _in my arms_. You said that last time too: 'forget about it.' _As if it'd be easy! _What does that even _mean?_ "

Marco looks stunned as Luffy pants across from him.

"I..."

Luffy waits for the blonde to gather a response, but no words come out. He sighs. Breathes. Shaking Marco now won't change anything. Marco's sad, and Luffy shouldn't be yelling at him. Chopper's always after him, talking about tact and patience, Luffy knows he's not good at either of those, and he doesn't think _this_ is it.

He feels drowsy, all the fight seeping out of him as he slumps against the wall, the Sunny's wood smooth against his back. He buries his face on the crook of his elbow, trying to calm down, maybe gather some will to do... something, though he's not sure what to do.

Marco kisses him when he lowers his arm a moment later.

It's unexpected and unwelcomed, warm as well, familiar. Luffy can't bear to pull away, especially not with Marco's flagging life at the forefront of his mind. (Sometimes, when Marco has a bad day, Luffy hears the squelch and grind of the screw.)

Marco's screams ring in his ears; it overpowers Luffy's memories.

_Just... forget this ever happened, okay?_

"I shouldn't have done it." It's the first thing out of his mouth as he pulls apart; he towers over Luffy, his forearms braced against the wall above the younger man's shoulder. "You were too young and sad, and I... I should've known better."

Luffy lets his forehead sink into Marco's chest, and he breathes out.

"I don't understand."

"That is... exactly my point."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slowly, but we keep moving forwards. Technically I have 4 more chapters outlined for this, and the ending is written. There's just details that I'm having trouble wrestling into making sense, but worry not, we'll definitely see this through, ideally before 2021 rolls around!
> 
> take care <3


	20. Wano

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last time: _Luffy fails to understand why exactly Marco is angry with him._

Their argument was a long-time coming, and the solution is obvious: they need to stop. Marco wasn't right for Luffy in Rusukain, and he's starting to see that Luffy isn't right for him now. Marco needs quiet and peace and safety, and life aboard the Thousand Sunny is none of those things. It's joyous and beautiful and entertaining, but that's beside the point. Marco's usually better at seeing the end of his relationships and the bittersweet determination settles clear on his chest as he ponders life with Luffy's soft snoring by him. He aches to reach out to him, but the phoenix needs to realize that it's time to let him go.

This is it. Marco doesn't feel like it's fair to either of them, continuing this charade, this normal that has no boundaries or name. Marco's sure what he will say to Luffy next. No further thought is needed, but then...

_I love you, Marco. _

It's Dressrosa and Luffy's takedown of Doflamingo. Marco _hears _about Luffy's injuries, but he doesn't really understand what it means until he sees Luffy after fighting Cracker, Sanji, Katakuri… emerging almost life-less out of the mirror, so fragile in Sanji's arms. Always fighting and reaching and making the impossible possible at whatever cost. Handing so much of himself to the world, the sea, his dreams that Marco wonders if there will be anything of him for Marco himself to take. The older pirate tries to avoid taking it personally and fails.

_I'm sorry to worry you, Marco, but I'm going to be okay. _

He's a fool for believing such a thing.

Wano tests them in ways Marco's not ready for since the moment they arrive. The air between them is tense, careful, charged with uncertainty they have never known. Marco and Luffy have always fit seamlessly into each other with nary a word. Learned their lover in the ways of the sea, in the unspoken intentions of dreams, in tender touches through the night. Marco's gut churns with anxiety, a familiar feeling that whispers about cold laboratories and rusting chains and sea stone screws. Wano is going to be dangerous. Luffy's goal seems more hair-brained the closer they are to it. The crew notices the distance between captain and phoenix, and their curious stares weigh Marco down.

All such worries become inconsequential when Luffy's suddenly _off the ship_, and even Marco's phoenix form isn't fast enough to catch him.

There is a whole minute when Marco lives and breathes in a world where Monkey D. Luffy is dead.

It's the same. The sea is just as rough, the sky just as blue. The beach Marco and the rest of the crew stand on is just like every other beach Marco has sunk his feet on, but the very air he breathes seems unfamiliar, lacking. Things happen a little slowly, hard to process while Luffy's flailing form replays itself in Marco's brain again and again. By now, he's familiar with the beginning of a panic attack. The phoenix tries to recall any advice to stave it off, he knows he has some, but all he can see is the last glimpse of Luffy's straw hat. What was the last thing Marco even said to him? This wasn't how it was supposed to go. This isn't-!

_Stay with me then._

Nami's hand clasps on his shoulder. It startles him, the touch overwhelming in his hyper-focused state. Her mouth is grim and downturned, but she shows him a white slip of paper. Marco doesn't understand what she's trying to tell him until he catches the katakana, tiny drawn on the corner: _Luffy, _it reads. Marco holds on to Luffy's vivre card with both hands.

* * *

The suspicion begins the moment Luffy wakes up on the beach. It's cool that he's alive and all, but Luffy's kind of used to weird things just working out around him, so even when he fell off the Sunny, he was confident he'd be okay. He briefly acknowledges that such a thing isn't necessarily true for his crewmates, but he's sure they'll meet each other soon enough.

The thought falls a little behind when he meets Tama, because _she knows Ace, _and _Ace was once here in Wano too. _The idea is sobering and exciting simultaneously, a bittersweet emotion that consumes Luffy's entire being. Absolute joy upon learning a sliver more about the life Ace lived, definite grief at the reminder of all the dreams his brother left behind, all the promises that can never come to be. Luffy's here now, though, and he will carry on Ace's will. Always and forever etching pieces of his brother into the future and the world. Luffy will bring Ace's memory all the way to Laugh Tale; Ace believed in him after all.

The small niggling in the back of his head stays with him as he steals the food and the water, an exasperated, pleading voice in the back of his head. Luffy knows who it sounds like, but he's always been good at ignoring common sense.

When he goes to beat Kaido up - incensed and burning with desire to put an _end _to what's happening to Wano, trying to believe that his friends _are fine_ because _they have to be -_ it tickles the edges of consciousness. No time for any of such things when Luffy's too busy staving off the taste of defeat. Kaidou... isn't as easy to beat as Luffy wanted him to be. (It's frustrating, being so outmatched after all the training he's done. His argument with Marco echoes in his mind as he loses consciousness.)

Luffy finally acknowledges what his gut has been trying to tell him since his arrival to Wano once he's bandaged and imprisoned. By then, it's much too late to do anything about it, and uncharacteristic nervousness settles at the base of his spine.

_Marco's going to be angry at me again._

* * *

Marco doesn't remember the last time he was this angry.

He's been hurt and sad lately, frustrated and numb. He's been tired and irritated, but mostly he's been scared. His fright manifests itself in many ways: loudly: screaming and yelling and rages and murder; softly: in accusations and avoidance and unpleasant conversations. Today might be the first time Marco's wrath emanates from anything other than fear since Sphinx.

(It's probably progress in a promising direction, but fury is all-consuming and doesn't leave room for much else.)

Marco sees Kaido's massive form take to the skies, and of course, _of course, _Luffy's there to greet him. Nami tries to keep him with the group, they yell about the plan. But _who the fuck cares about the plan right now? _The phoenix might regret it later, but there's no way the former first mate can stay still, not when Luffy faces an Emperor underprepared.

Marco doesn't reach him.

* * *

Law is rational enough to leave Straw Hat-ya to get beaten into the ground - a hobby of his apparently - but as he spies a flying mass of blue flames, he realizes he has a problem. Law is worried for Straw Hat-ya. As much grumbling as he does about it, it's the truth. Luffy and his band of merry idiots have scurried their way into his heart and his gratitude through blood, sweat, tears, and an astounding lack of common sense. Law really hopes the idiot doesn't get himself killed but is aware there's little he can do to prevent it at the moment, not without some serious repercussions. He'd tried to swap him before, but he cannot get close enough with Hawkins and the other foot soldiers on hand.

Law deduces all of this through logic and reason, something that is needed a lot more amongst his allies because he cannot believe he's about to watch Marco the Phoenix - out of all of them - ruin everything they've put into place. It shouldn't surprise him. Law knows Phoenix-ya's circumstances, his relationship with Straw Hat-ya but _still. _It takes all of Law's concentration to Shambles Marco out of his warpath towards Kaido with the barrel next to him. The bird is gigantic in its rage, disoriented as it squawks in confusion and then indignation. A plan forms in Law's brain, he bites his lip in reflex at the boldness, but he doesn't think he has much of a choice.

(It's what Straw Hat-ya would want anyway... probably.)

"What the- what the fuck, Trafalgar?!" Some of the phoenix's flames melt away, enough for his human mouth to speak and bespectacled feathers to narrow in anger. Law has a microsecond if he's going to do this.

"I'm really sorry about this." And he really, really is. It doesn't stop him from sinking the sea stone nail into the bird's side. The flames evaporate in one quick movement, and Marco collapses on his knees, utter betrayal written all over his face. His hands hover uselessly over the nail, sticking out under his ribs; they tremble. It takes the former first mate only a second to realize what happened, and the blood drains from his face, blue eyes wide and haunted upon his face.

"Look, Phoenix-ya, I get it, but if we go for Straw Hat now…" but it hits Law then, in Marco's eyes. The pirate has raised his shirt, just enough to pick at the nail in between his ribs, and his mouth moves, but no words come out. When he looks up, his gaze goes straight through Law, and he suddenly falls backward, a hollow sound as his knees give out from under him. He abrades his palms scrambling back until his back hits the wall. His legs are dead weight as he does so.

Fucking shit.

For all his reason and logic, Law did not think this one through.

"Phoenix-ya, you're okay. I just, I need you you to let Straw Hat-ya do his thing." Not that Law's too sure what that is, but his argument falls upon deaf ears. The realization makes him guilty, which in turn makes him cross. Marco's here, next to Law, trembling and - fucking shit - _crying. _However, Law can tell, even with inexperience, that the older man isn't _here. _

When he reaches a tattooed hand forward to try and snap the phoenix into the present, the doctor flinches back, startled and somewhat hesitant as Marco _writhes away from him. _Law has no idea what's wrong with the blonde's legs, but it's gut-wrenching watching him quake against the wall. The phoenix buries his face into his hands and stays as far away as he can press himself further into the side of the hut.

"No more," he mumbles, slow, haunting and painfully, painfully scared, "no more, _please." _

_"Holy fucking shit," _Law curses. He has the urge to look around for help, but anyone he'd recognize is probably trouble. "Fuck," he swears again for good measure, low enough to hopefully not worsen the situation.

He steps forward, crouching to Phoenix-ya's level but still remains doubtful of how to proceed. Insanely, he entertains the notion of electrocuting him into unconsciousness. Very deliberately, Law calls himself an idiot in his head. Yes, more trauma; that's _exactly _what the older pirate needs. Honestly, Law has always considered Luffy a dumbass, but he has to give credit where it's due if things like this are what his fellow supernova has been dealing with.

"Phoenix-ya," he calls out, only for the other to still at his proximity, "Phoenix-ya, you need to calm down."

Brilliant. Yes, this must work. _Just calm down._ Sorry to have triggered some kind of psychotic break of an attack and make you think you've been recaptured.

This is the reason Law's a surgeon, no bedside manner needed when your patients are unconscious.

He breathes in and out one more time.

What would Straw Hat-ya do?

...hug him? Law is _not _going to embrace Marco in this lifetime, and from the way the other is seemingly terrified of him, it probably won't work. Cora-san hugged Law when he was little, but Law's not sure it was the hug that made him feel better as much as just having the older man with him. Maybe that's the reason it'd work out for Straw Hat-ya.

Something else then.

.

.

.

_Fuck,_ is that really Law's only plausible idea? Forcibly knock him out or a hug? Giving comfort is definitely not his thing. The surgeon steadies himself. Straw Hat-ya is down, being carried off to who knows where but the focus in him has thinned, so someone's going to start looking around for other intruders soon enough. They cannot stay here.

"Phoenix-ya," no response. A sigh. Marco remains leaning against the wall, every inch of him tense and shivering, his expression hidden in his hands. "Marco-ya," it's not quite an acknowledgment, but the man does seem to perk up some. Kind of. (It can be Law's wishful thinking if he's honest.) "Marco-ya, you're okay. You're not in Punk Hazard anymore, okay? I'm sorry about the sea stone" - a flinch. Good and bad, at least now he knows the other is listening to some extent. "I can take it off for you, okay? You are" _okay, _he means to say, but... "you are going to be okay," he corrects. "It's just sea stone. I'm going to take it out now, okay?"

Marco doesn't move or react, even as Law's hand gets closer and closer.

"Yes, it's okay, Pho- Marco-ya. You're going to be okay, and..." Law swallows, deciding whether the following is a lie or not and pushing through anyway. "Straw Hat-ya too, okay? I know he's a dumb as a rock, but he's stubborn. He doesn't need rescue, so you need to stay with me. So just..."

Marco's head raises slowly.

He looks gaunt and pale, sweat is accumulating over his brow, and his hands are still trembling even as they grip his pant-legs so tightly his knuckles have gone white. Law freezes with a hand half extended towards him. Not because of the frightened body language, but rather because of Marco's fierce, ice-blue glower. His blonde eyebrows are curled in absolute disdain, and there's so much anger pouring out of him that Law has the need to swallow, unsure of what he's witnessing.

One hesitant hand reaches up under the Phoenix's shirt, and there are a shudder and yelp, but Marco's glare does not shift from the younger pirate. The nail goes bouncing off and away, and Law carefully steps back, his grip on Kikoku a little tighter. Discreetly, he glances around the terrain, equally looking for a possible enemy as well as locational advantage. Law hopes he's been anxious about nothing, but he has the suspicion that Phoenix-ya is about to throw it down with him. An unpleasant thought that has Law schooling his expression while grinding his teeth in agitation.

"Where is Luffy?"

"You can't go after him right now. He'll be fine."

"Fine?" Marco's voice comes softly, incongruent with the rest of his demeanor as he tiredly brings himself to his feet. Color returns to his skin, and flames are visible for a moment under his shirt, healing the small injury found there. "_Fine?" _he repeats, catching heat. "He could be _fucking dead." _His gaze is electrified, lightning fire in the blackest thundercloud. Grand Line weather, dangerous and unpredictable. "How _dare you?" _

Law's temper had been sparking and sparking, hesitant hands trying to light it up, and it finally catches in the face of Marco's recovery (?).

"How dare I? Straw Hat-ya is _already_ fucking up everything we've been doing, and you were about to make it _worse. _There is a plan for a _reason! S_o that we don't all get our _asses handed to us, _and we _maybe _get off this god-forsaken island in one piece!" Law has to wrestle his temper down because his yelling will undoubtedly attract attention at this rate. "Hitting you with the nail was a dick move, but someone had to stop you from going into a fight we were not going to win!"

"I could've saved him!"

"Or you could've gotten us all captured!"

"Luffy could be dead!"

"Men like Straw Hat don't die that easy." Law doesn't know where such a statement came from, but he's surprised to comprehend that he believes it. For his part, Marco's entire self seems to deflate at the statement, and Law wonders if he got through to him, but his blue eyes are baleful when they meet his once more.

"They do," he sneers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, this chapter ran away from me but I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out! I'm curious, who do you think is right in this argument? Luffy or Marco?
> 
> Also, straight up, why does this story only update on Mondays? that makes no sense with my real life schedule. 
> 
> anyway, take care <3


	21. Self-Inflicted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last time: _Luffy loses against Kaidou, Law's interception of Marco's rescue attempt gets out of hand._

Marco watches Momonosuke run.

His fingertips dissolve into nothing, boneless and numb as Luffy collapses. Chopper throws a worried glance his way, but he's too busy preparing an antidote to pay Marco much mind, hurrying and swearing under his breath. It's like empty murmuring, faraway rushing water to Marco, who cannot stop looking at the Straw Hat's captain, still reeling from his idiotic display.

Grabbing on to Queen's plague might actually be the stupidest thing Luffy has ever done, and his lover is all about jumping into nonsensical things.

Marco has very hazy memories of the time Luffy found him in Punk Hazard. Mostly, he remembers watching him cry while trying to pinpoint the familiar face - the first one he'd seen in ages. Marco cannot forget the sound of the screw twisting out of bone, thinking it was just the beginning of another wave of pain. He'd been so very afraid. Marco had been ready to die.

Now, it is Luffy's skin that burns and shrivels, wrinkled unnaturally as the infection wrecks havoc upon his system. His eyes are unfocused, even as he attempts to meet Marco's gaze. Luffy knows, Marco has no doubt, he knows this is exactly what Marco was referring to. Marco should be angry,  _ furious,  _ and he  _ is,  _ but looking down on Luffy, he's just unsure if he will  _ live  _ long enough for Marco to be angry at him.

He kneels down over him and lets blue fire cocoon them both; the entire movement tastes like defeat. Luffy sighs, curling up on Marco's chest. His eyes seem a little more awake before he buries his gaze under the crook of Marco's neck, his raspy breath warm against Marco's unmarred skin. Is this what Luffy felt like when he found Marco? Like the world stopped? Like he wanted to reach inside him and scoop out all the suffering and pain? Luffy did this, but Marco still remembers his soft whimper from before.  _ It hurts.  _ Had he ever heard Luffy say that since they'd crossed paths once more? It took a lot,  _ too much,  _ for the pirate captain to admit to weakness. Now, he lies against Marco, helpless, and bone-tired.

Marco's flames are not enough to cure him, but they should still the infection at least a little, ease some of the pain. Marco wants to scream, a wail builds somewhere beneath his sternum, but he just can't get rid of it.

"I don't mean to worry you," the words are softly spoken, remnants of a dream. The phoenix tries to combat Luffy's self-inflicted contagious disease, runs blunt fingernails down his ruined back. Luffy says this, but his body speaks differently.

"I know."  _ You just don't care.  _

"Sometimes... I just gotta do things, you know?" Like saving people's souls and uniting countries, indeed, Marco has noticed.

"I'm trying to figure out if that is something I can live with, Luffy."

"What do you mean?" Slowly and painfully, Luffy separates from Marco to look him in the eye. He's a mess, pale and gaunt, brow furrowed in confusion and pain. They've never talked about this or them, not even in passing. He and Luffy had just fallen into this familiar rhythm after Punk Hazard, and neither had really questioned it, but-

"I thought you  _ died, _ thrice in as many days," Marco's voice is manic, too high and distraught to be his own. "I don't want to ever see people I love die in front of me again."

Marco had left the sea once, for a tiny village that he still hasn't mustered the courage to visit.

"Neither do I." Luffy's voice, a little stronger than it was before, is genuine and solemn. It sets Marco off immediately, because  _ how dare he. _

"That includes  _ you, _ Luffy," he grits out.

"I'll be-" he coughs, wheezing for air, wincing as his chest contracts at the motion "-careful!"

"Like you've been so far?" There's something ugly in Marco's tone, a feeling similar to what possessed him in Dressrosa and later on in Whole Cake Island. The cracks in his foundation that reach the core of Marco's survival instinct, empirical pessimism drifts up through them like ash smoke towards the surface, towards Luffy's sunlight. Hate and fear, this new thing implanted in Marco that he doesn't want and cannot control. It's not loud or rushing like the itch for battle; it's deadly quiet. "If I asked you to forget about Kaidou… would you?"

Luffy's expression, pained as it is, says it all.

"Thought so."

"Marco... I... Momo and these guys here, they..."

"I can't do this." It spouts out of him, like ridding himself of the poison curling in his veins.

Luffy freezes in his arms, going still in ways Marco has rarely seen him. Marco's comment is almost off-handed, desperate, but it seems to weigh a ton, too real for their unstable conversation. It gets through to Luffy when nothing else does.

"Do what?" he queries carefully.

"I can't... I can't stay with you and then  _ watch you die. _ " It's not the first time Marco thinks it, not even the first time he says it, but it just might be the first time he truly admits it to himself.

"You can't ask people not to die, Marco; that doesn't work." The statement sounds hollow, perfunctory, and if Marco remembers right, Ace once promised Luffy not to die. (Guess that didn't work out, something in him whispers.)

_ That's why I'm leaving,  _ is what Marco means to say, but it feels too certain, too final, and Marco doesn't have that kind of conviction.

"I need to go," he says instead.

"Aha!" Chopper exclaims; his timing is terribly beautiful too, as Marco takes a step back from Luffy. The pirate captain struggles to his feet, and everything in Marco screams to put him back to bed. His flames don't disappear as much as they bend, preparing Marco for flight.

"You're really stupid right now." The comment makes him flinch back, momentarily shocked at the insensitive accusation. Marco reminds himself that stupid is basically one of the few adjectives Luffy knows, and he's probably not trying to invalidate all of Marco's feelings. (It pisses him off anyway.)

"You can't just say that and think that my feelings are going to go away, Luffy. You finding them stupid doesn't make them any less real."

"And what do you think leaving to be alone is then?" Luffy's entire form trembles, but Marco doesn't know if it's the illness or the anger. "Smart?! No! It's  _ lonely. _ And being alone is worse than being hurt," his voice isn't loud, but it definitely has the intention to be, especially compared to how it seems to fade as he continues, "it's worse than death."

Makes sense, since some days, Marco wants to die.

"I can't handle it if something were to happen to you," Marco reasons, aware that his words land on deaf ears. "That's all you do, throw yourself headfirst into the most dangerous thing within a hundred-mile radius. It's not an irrational fear when you're on the cusp of death every other time I've seen you." Luffy hasn't called him irrational, but Marco feels like that anyway.

"That's not true!"

"Luffy, you do nothing but challenge people who want to squish you like a bug and who eat rookies like you for breakfast, lunch, and dinner."

"That's what it takes to be Pirate King!"

Distantly, Marco's aware of CHopper's wide eyes and awkward frame lingering a few steps beside them. In his hoof, he carries a syringe. The cure for whatever ails Luffy is done then. It barely registers for Marco, lost in the rushing of his ears and the fright squeezing his heart.

"What good will that be if you're dead?!"

"I'm willing to die for my dream."

"But I don't  _ want you to! _ "

They huff and pant, staring each other down even as Luffy sways. Marco reaches a hand to steady him but freezes halfway at the look on Luffy's face. His black eyes are narrowed, and he no longer looks hesitant nor scared. He looks angry, the kind of livid that comes from being hurt. Marco did that.

"Marco, after the war, in Rusukaina," Marco knows it's coming, he walked right into this, "I asked you to stay." It's not an accusation, it's a fact, and it shreds at whatever little self-control Marco was holding on to. "And you didn't." Luffy looks away for a second, but Marco catches the ugly twist to his face anyway. He can't do anything about the tears smearing down Luffy's cheeks. They sizzle on Luffy's burning skin. "I didn't like it, but I let you go anyway because that was important to you."

"It's not the same," Marco denies quickly.

"How?!" Luffy demands, voice finally loud enough to be a yell.

It's a question Marco has no answer for, and in two beats of blue-fire wings, he's gone. It's not the first time he runs away from a conversation, and it's also not the first time he runs away from Luffy. The captain calls after him, but Marco doesn't stop.

Later, Luffy no longer feels like death warmed over, physically at least. He tries to keep the worry to himself, he doesn't like giving his crew a hard time, but he can't keep the words trapped inside him. Marco's parting, the rushing of blue fire and wings until there'd been no sight of him on the horizon, is making his stomach hurt. (Luffy's learned to not confuse the feeling with hunger, even though he  _ is  _ also starving.)

"I don't understand, Chopper," he whispers tiredly, eyes drooping already from such a long couple of days. "Why is Marco angry?" He swallows, his throat still parched and the skin of it sensitive from the previous fever. "What does it mean something he can live with? Is he getting sad again?" Luffy did think about it, that there is a chance Marco's anger has nothing to do with him. (He thinks it does, though.) Chopper, picking up his medical equipment with steady hoofs, falters in his answer before resuming his task with slower moves.

"It probably means he's questioning your long-term commitment, though the only way to be sure is to ask him." It takes Luffy a minute to transmit  _ long-term commitment  _ to something tangible in his life. When he does, he shoots up from the bed, ignoring the way his muscles shriek in protest. Wild eyes search his Nakama's own guilty gaze, and Luffy knows his assumption cannot be far off.

"He's leaving…?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUYSSSS, ALL OF HOL IS OFFICIALLY WRITTEN what is life !
> 
> I kind of wrote the last three chapters backwards? it was weird, but this one here was the only one missing and i am sooooo excited! 
> 
> Things are coming to a head as Marco and Luffy struggle to integrate their relationship and their dreams. Tough, adult shit that. 
> 
> What are your thoughts so far? What do you think's going to happen?
> 
> take care and thank you for sticking by me all these months, we're practically on the finish line and should have chapter 22 on tuesday and chapter 23 no later than next weekend. I'm literally spacing them out just because lol, other than the final edit, this story is done done done! 
> 
> ps: this chapter hasn´t been totally edited but im going to be whitoutwifi for days and i wanted to upload this before too long. It'll be compeltely fixed by the next update:)
> 
> love,
> 
> dee


	22. Assault

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last time: _Luffy and Marco struggle to see eye to eye as Luffy's recklesness continues and Marco's worry worsens._
> 
> **IMPORTANT:** my laptop is out of commissioned for at least two weeks **all of my stories will be delayed** including the upcoming chapter because I have no way to do any writing right now! Chapter 23 is written but it's missing heavy editing still and I have no device to do so. I am sorry for the delay but I'm taking this time to outline and sketch out scenes by hand which has been very positive for creativity :D 
> 
> Just in case you don't heart from me before 2021, happy holidays and all the best for the upcoming year.
> 
> love,  
dee

Marco's flown them up to the top of one of Rusukaina's frozen peaks, the island is small, but it reaches for the skies with jagged determination. The blonde has bundled Luffy up like a potato, delighting himself in the other's genuine excitement. The breeze and the snow mean nothing to Marco; he scarcely notices the transition from the sweltering seashore to the biting cold of the mountain top. Luffy's a sucker for the snow, though, and well, Marco's a sucker for his smile.

The younger man has run himself ragged on this uncharacteristic off-day, Rayleigh taking a couple of days off for his wife's birthday. Marco tries to understand how she puts up with his whimsical absences but has enough life experience not to ask. Now, cozying up to Marco for warmth, Luffy's energy shifts from snow angels and snowball fights to talking, shooting off a mile a minute about anything and everything that colors his thoughts. Today's topic is his crew, and with how much the Straw Hat pirates come up, Marco's impressed that he still has things to share. The older pirate never talks about his own crew, and Luffy - ignorant or wise - never asks.

"...he's got so many cool scars too, but some he got 'cause Zoro can be sooo dumb. Like, he's got these ones on his legs, because he tried to cut himself out from some wax thing and..." Like this, Marco doesn't think about Pops or Ace, doesn't feel Thatch's absence. Here, Marco can heal from Namur's accusations and Izou's tears.

When he worries about Luffy and how he feels within his arms, the promise of heated distraction is never far as it buzzes under his skin. Marco can nod and hum and be filled with sunshine and joy. This Luffy is nothing like the Luffy found that first day, the wreckage of grief and desperate need. It's been so little time, but this thing they're doing and Rayleigh's training has breathed life into Luffy's lungs anyway. For some reason, the young pirate is adamant about sharing such precious resilience with Marco of all people. It's selfish of him to take so easily, but the realization only has him hug Luffy tighter. Marco thinks that without this, without this ease and heat, without this guilty obsession... he might've gone mad, crushed under responsibility, washed away in mourning.

"He was first, right? The swordsman, yoi." He feels Luffy's enthusiastic nod through the blanket before he hears his confirmation. It's a shame that they cannot hold skin to skin, but Marco's flames do not produce any warmth, and Luffy's rubber body is sensitive against the cold.

"Yes! He's the best!" Luffy burrows further into the blanket, cocooned in Marco's chest. He falls quiet for a moment and then adds in a fond whisper: "he's gonna be the strongest, you know?"

"So you've told me."

"Shishishishi!" Marco's chest rumbles with his own chuckle, wondering when he relearned to be happy for happiness' sake.

"The Pirate King and the World's Strongest Swordsman, yoi?" Marco says, amused by Luffy's ever-growing dreams.

"Yep!"

.

.

.

That is the innocuous memory that assaults Marco as the edge of a blade cleaves right through him, bisecting hip in two from hip bone to shoulder. For a singular moment, his arm flies off, torn from him with pinpoint accuracy. Where blood and guts should spray out, blue fires come to life, and once the flames die down, there is a bloodthirsty grin biting down upon a white sword to greet him. Roronoa Zoro has a long way to go before he can instill fear into Marco, but at that moment, emerging from the forest's shadows like a wild beast, scarred and broad and fierce in the way Luffy's prone to describe him, he comes close.

The swordsman straightens out momentarily, grinning at the older pirate—no regret in the face of his unrequited violence nor explanation for picking a fight. Marco's caught on that Zoro needs little reason to cross blades with someone, but the surprise attack does leave him on edge.

"That really is a useful ability," the swordsman says, single dark eye intently focused. "Luffy sure knows how to pick 'em." A ridiculous thought pops into Marco's brain, foolish enough to belong to a Straw Hat pirate. Before he can voice it, a bird leg comes up to clasp on Roronoa's attack by pure reflex. The amount of force behind the swing is astonishing, and Marco needs to focus to not buckle under the pressure. In one second, Roronoa has thrown himself at the blonde. The man is relatively fast and agile for his thick frame, worthy of noting, and faster than Marco would've credited him to be. As they struggle in their deadlock, Marco's blue eyes narrow onto him.

"Are you here to give me a shovel talk, yoi?"

After what happened at the prison, no way the Straw Hats haven't realized that Marco and Luffy are on rocky terrain.

"What?" Zoro huffs out, not missing a beat. His words come out vaguely distorted due to the sword in his mouth, but he is clearly experienced in speaking around it. "Say that if you break his heart, I'll kick your ass? My captain can do that himself." He rolls out of the way, unbalancing Marco, who needs to jump back from another opportunistic swing.

He's not sure how or why he falls into the rhythm, but Marco's claws against Roronoa's blades ring true over and over again in the bamboo forest of Wano. (How did Roronoa even  _ found him?!)  _

He slips through his guard more than once, solid knuckle and elbows finding thick rippling muscle with a thud. Despite the strength of the blows, Roronoa barely grunts, slicing at Marco's hipbone. Contrary to the previous set of cuts, this one bleeds, coated in haki as it comes. Bright red drips down between fire feathers. Marco lounges, twisting in between Roronoa's blades to catch him by the throat. The ground cracks as the younger pirate is pushed against it. Reflexively, he coughs, all of the air in his lungs brutally expelled at once.

"Then what is it, yoi?" Marco grounds out. Roronoa takes desperate, gulping breaths, eyes lit up in challenge. He's.... enjoying himself. (Marco wants to sigh.) The swordman's not done, but Marco makes sure bird feet press tightly, sinking him into the dirt, shining with the promise of how much deeper they can slice him open. Unlike the phoenix, Roronoa's own blood won't dissolve into healing fire painlessly. (Marco cannot really injure him; they're too close to serious combat for that. He's just... on edge.) There is no dissatisfaction in his position as he examines Marco's panting visage threatening him from above him. Marco is done. (He's... feeling better, actually, but that doesn't mean he wants to continue. He's never enjoyed violence for violence's sake.)

"Choose..." the swordsman says, twisting himself in a way that makes clear he's hardly winded, "and then stick to that choice." 

"Excuse me?" The ultimatum catches Marco off-guard only for a second, but it's all Roronoa needs to twist himself out of Marco's grasp, though his kimono does suffer for it. Marco settles back to defend because he'd pinned Roronoa down in a show of desperate thinking; the swordsman is nowhere near done.

No assault comes.

Zoro eyes him up and down, and Marco doubts that he finds what he came looking for, but it's enough. He grins, nods once (to what, Marco has no idea) and offers:

"You're strong, phoenix. Choose," Roronoa's eyes extort promises from the world, "and then,  _ stick to that choice. _ "

It shouldn't make him smile. 

Marco sees himself so much in Luffy's first mate. In the reckless actions and endless determination, in the urge to vie for his captain's wellbeing above everything and everyone else, no matter what. Marco wonders if Zoro's failed Luffy yet, at least once, and how he coped with that loss. He wonders if he's realized his dreams mean nothing without someone to light up the way for them. Marco wonders if he's learned to hide his own insecurity or doubt. A first mate cannot be capricious nor eccentric like the captain -especially not with men like Whitebeard and Luffy. They need to be steady and unshakeable, the concrete, fierce foundation of the abstract made flesh. The jar capable of holding the hurricane within it. He's breathless in his curiosity and terrified of his answers as well. So Marco doesn't say anything as Zoro walks back from whence he came. 

\-----------------------------

"Zoro makes it sound easy, doesn't he?" Usopp makes his voice soft, hoping it could ride along with the salty breeze dancing through the bamboo. He startles Marco anyway. "Sorry," he says sincerely, only mildly sheepish, "I overheard."

Marco's unharmed from his clash with Zoro, barely even winded, but he looks exhausted as dull blue eyes connect with dark brown.

"How did any of you find me, yoi?"

"Eh, Zoro probably got lost and found you on accident..." Usopp theorizes, no way Zoro got here if that's what he meant to do. "I followed the bloodthirst and giant sword swings." He gives Marco a wry smile. "I-I didn't mean to pry, honest! But I didn't understand why you were fighting, and then I got worried and then, well, the Great Captain Usopp is just looking out for you! Yes, it's okay, no need to thank me! Though..."

"Ussop..." Marco calls his name but seems at a loss as to what to say. He frowns, puzzling out his intentions and maybe assuming Usopp is also here in Luffy's honor. It's just as well that he says nothing; Usopp has enough to speak for the both of them. He takes a deep breath, trying to shake off his nerves.

"I wanted to talk to you," the younger man declares, fists tightening in determination where they hang limply at his sides. At his rudeness, Usopp's quick to add an embarrassed "if that's okay." Marco doesn't stop him, not that he looks eager or anything, and the sniper runs with it. "I know it's none of my business, but I think Zoro empathizes with Luffy too much, and I guess I agree more with you than him, haha."

Marco's frown deepens. Displeased? Uncomfortable?

"I don't need to commiserate," he comments blandly, staring off through the forest. Around them, bamboo shoots cover the landscape, and light filters through softened, glowing golden as late afternoon creeps by. 

"...Right, I just..." Usopp scrambles for a way to give sound to the feeling permeating the air lately, things Usopp barely understands but admires anyway. "Marco... Luffy loves you."

"He loves everybody," the other replies quickly. Usop pushes on undeterred, even when he feels the faint trembling of his legs. He's nervous,  _ very much so,  _ but he's also determined to do right by Luffy.

"Not like he loves  _ you. _ "

The words ring through in the shadowed clearing. 

"...That's why I can't stay, yoi."

Dread curls under Usopp's tongue. Marco's gaze is familiar and foreign, belonging to the bird rescued from Punk Hazard. Not the man who gardens with Usopp and dares defy Nami and kisses Luffy goodbye like his captain is somehow fragile and precious.

"Oh, you don't... love him back?" It sounds impossible, even as the sniper says it. 

Silence greets him. Usopp's heart beats under his sternum, hard enough to bruise the bone meant to contain it.  _ Oh, Luffy... _

"I'm afraid that if Luffy dies... it's going to kill me." The older pirate's voice is a little hoarse, ad even as he speaks, he doesn't meet his eyes. 

"But do you..."

"Things with Luffy have always been so... simple,  _ easy. Too easy."  _ A laugh bursts out of Marco, bitter and rueful.  _ " _ Nothing good should've come from meeting each other. The circumstances were terrible, yoi. I was... grieving and overworked, trying to salvage Pop's family while falling apart." One hand comes up as if to gesture to Usopp, but it only hovers in the air a few moments before falling back down to hide in Marco's pockets. "Luffy was  _ devastated, _ estranged from his crew, and willing to sacrifice a lot to become strong." Usopp's heart aches, thinking back to reading the news and accidentally digging out the guilt of  _ not being there  _ when Luffy needed him most. "We couldn't have been in more different places in life if we tried, other than the sorrow we carried from the War of the Best. And yet," he looks at Usopp, at his wide eyes and hesitant stance. The sniper wants to run, but his feet are stuck to the patch of forest he stands on. Marco doesn't stop himself, and a part of Usopp imagines that it's because he can't. "When we met, the world seemed to click in place."

Usopp has very minimal experience but is that not love?

"What happened? Luffy said... Luffy said you left?" He voices it like a question, but curiosity colors his voice.

"...When the commanders voted to face Blackbeard, I urged them to avoid the confrontation. I didn't want to leave, and I knew facing off the emerging Emperor... there was a big chance I wouldn't come back." There's surprise in the voice as Marco turns around, only giving Usopp a view of his back, tall and threatening as it is. "I thought, with how attached Luffy and I were, how dependant on our strength we'd allowed ourselves to become, how unfair it all was on my part... that leaving was for the best." Usopp feels like Marco might still believe that. "I've sailed and learned and made countless mistakes. Luffy isn't the first person I've shared a bed with nor the first person that I've loved. I've chased and grabbed on to so many dreams, and I've let go of plenty of them too. I've  _ lived,  _ Ussop." And that's what it all comes down to, isn't it? "And it's been a good life, but I'm  _ tired.  _ I don't want a grand adventure, or to take down Emperors or to find Laugh Tale. I just want to settle down. Let life pass me by a little and stop jumping onto every single problem that arises around me. There's so much for you guys to see, to feel... and I... can't do that right now."

"Luffy doesn't care about any of that! Marco, you're... you're  _ Nakama."  _

"I can't go back to what I was before, and the more I come to terms with that... the harder living aboard the Sunny becomes."

Usopp hadn't exactly planned out this conversation, but this wasn't what he was expecting.

\------------

"Look, it might be so inappropriate coming from me, but... don't you think you're going to regret it? Taking th-the coward's way out?"

Marco thinks about the Moby Dick, about Sphinx, the Thousand Sunny.

He thinks about Pops and Luffy.

Grand signatures of their eras, men of family and Nakama, of revolution.

And Marco, always rising from the ashes of dead dreams to illuminate another one.

When does he become a symbol of his own?

"I  _ am _ being brave," and he knows it's true as he says it. "Braver than I've ever been, probably."

* * *

The Straw Hats act pleased to see him when Marco comes back to camp. Not all of them had been at the prison, but they're avid gossips if Marco's ever met any.

Guilt stirs in his gut, but he knows what he will do. He eyes Kin'emon looking up at his arrival. He and his old friend really need to talk, but Marco has been reminded today how deep the bond of Nakama runs. Marco cannot go into battle thinking about Luffy (he won't make it through), but he owes Oden this much, at least. They look up at him as he joins them, Luffy nowhere to be found. He can be asleep or training or eating, who knows, but Marco thinks the significance of the moment might be lost on him anyway.

"I'll see Wano through," if they pick up on the finality of the statement, no one comments on it. He catches Zoro's eyes. The first mate's intense stare sizes him up; there's an ugly bruise on his chin where Marco headbutted him in the morning. Whatever he catches in Marco's eyes seems to satiate him, as he nods his head once and goes back to rest against a nearby tree.

"It's scary, isn't it?" It's Sanji who voices the thought, setting a somewhat melancholic mood. Instinctively, everyone present seems to understand what he means.

"Terrifying," Nami agrees. She brings up the sunblock tube, showing it to Marco from behind Nico Robin, who is getting the usual treatment. He's resigned enough to not argue and crosses the fire to sit by her side. Even now, years later, the flickering flames always bring back memories of Ace.

"To be faced with such conviction is... staggering," Nico Robin mumbles, inching a little closer to the fire. Her toes wiggle dangerously close to it.

"Luffy's always had this weird thing of believing in you so much it actually makes you feel small," Usopp continues. He gives Marco a small glance through the fire's rising sparks, but he doesn't meet his eyes.

"Undeserving, bro, you feel undeserving."

"Like," Chopper mutters, "what did I ever do to earn this?"

"Why do you care that much?" Marco voices, giving words to what he holds on to the most. He told Usopp he's shared his bed and heart before, but he has also never found someone quite like Luffy.

"Why me?" Jinbei reflects. The phoenix wonders if he ever got an answer to his question and if he's made peace with following Luffy now. Marco really hopes he has.

"We cannot hesitate, not after this," Zoro tells them in the darkening sky. His shadow is long and twisted from where he's barely illuminated by the firelight. "It's the last leg of the journey, and we'll see it through till the end."

_ Luffy is home, foundation, and direction, _ Marco thinks, overlooking the crew of misfits willing to make Luffy's endless ramblings a part of history.

He has an odd feeling, an amalgamation of recollections, of late-night conversations; the solidarity found in the surrounding crewmates, all equally ensnared by the impossibilities spoken by the young man who Marco thinks he might be in love with.

_ How could he not be?  _ He wonders.

Cracking his chest wide-open and taking in all those who need it, Luffy's like a pathway to dreams, the house of the lost.

(Marco's ready to be found, though.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can any of u believe this is the last chapter?
> 
> So, next time we'll see how this wrap ups's, 13 more chapters than I ever thought. 
> 
> thank you to everyone who has supported this thing, it's been a ride <3


	23. Promises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ADDITIONAL NOTE, IMPORTANT: my computer is damaged, I will not be getting access to it after new year's and I was only able to post this bc my friend lent me their laptop. My entire update schedule is out of whack and behind. I am not being able to do any significant writing at this time, but I am as committed as always to finishing all my works, so if you've noticed that nothing else has updated for a couple of weeks now, this is why. I never expected the repair shop to keep it for so long.
> 
> Feel free to follow me on twitter to keep up with all my writing updates, I answer any questions or comments, give chapter snippets, update schedules, and just enjoy to generally hang out and meet people :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last time: _Marco is found in the aftermath of his discussion with Luffy, and in their own way, the Straw Hats help him find his way._

"Zoro." Luffy's voice is always loud, vibrating with an amount of excitement that he owns. His tone clashes against the decimation of Onigashima, too soft-spoken to break the spell weaved in murder and revenge. "Marco's leaving." The older man hadn't said so in that many words, but Luffy's always been more about the _feel_ of people. He catches Marco's guilt and his determination as soon as they cross their eyes before leaving for Onigashima. It's a little jarring that with Kaido down, this is the thought that keeps running through his head. Zoro, dirtied and blood stained, hums behind him.

"I know."

Luffy closes his eyes, a weight sitting heavy on his shoulders. So, Luffy's not the only one who's noticed.

"I don't want him to _go," _the younger pirate chokes out. Luffy won, he _won, _but this doesn't feel like winning. His entire body aches. He's been smacked around and clobbered, poisoned, and slashed at. He's taken his body to the limit and beyond, all his muscles feeling like goo that barely keeps him upright. Luffy's exhausted and ravenous. It's his breast bone, his stubbornly beating heart that hurts the most.

"I know," Zoro replies once more.

"He can't ask me not to get hurt!" He explodes, angry, and frustrated. Trying to rid himself of the image of Marco in the hallway. His mind had been hazy with want, always hungry for the things Marco does to him, the words whispered in his ear and the nimble hands taking him apart piece by piece. Then, Marco's anger had drenched him, slapped him out of it, and taken the planks of wood right out from under his feet. Luffy still _doesn't understand, _and he's angry. He's rarely been angry for _not getting it _before, but maybe if he did, Marco wouldn't have to go. "That's stupid! People get hurt all the time. We're pirates! We fight! There's no other way to..." _become Pirate King._ Like Luffy promised, like his Nakama encouraged, like Ace believed he would. His dream, his _goal _is so entrenched into everything Luffy has been and will be. Luffy already _promised! _"He can't ask me to...!" _To give up._

It's unthinkable.

"Is he asking you to?" Zoro asks.

"...No."

Marco wouldn't.

Luffy knows he wants to. Marco wants Luffy to be safe, but Marco also _knows. _Luffy's going to be Pirate King, or he's going to die trying; there's no other way his story ends. Luffy's too exhausted to hold on to his anger, and it slips out of him, leaving him only with the rumbling of his heartbeat rushing his ears. "Marco's always leaving me behind."

Zoro's quiet for so long that Luffy turns around to meet his stare. The former bounty hunter is looking miffed, a little baffled, faintly amused. His mouth curls up in a rueful smile as he answers Luffy's prompting.

"I think he'd say the same about you."

Luffy doesn't know what Zoro means, and he doesn't really care at the moment. He slumps down to the floor, pains showing themselves as his body acknowledges that the battle is over. So far up into the stronghold, they have a couple of minutes to rest before checking on anyone else. Luffy's a little scared, there were many friends fighting today, and he hasn't forgotten the war. (It might've not been his friends, but they'd been Marco's, and he watched the man mourn each and every one of them.) Marco's imminent departure had been easier to avoid with everything going on, but the more the battle cools, the more it's all Luffy thinks about.

"Marco's leaving, Zoro. I won, and I'm okay, but he's leaving."

It's not his first bittersweet victory, but it's the hardest one yet. It makes him unhappy, this New World that he can never navigate correctly. In Whole Cake Island, it'd happened too. They had Sanji and the poneglyphs, but they still don't know what happened to his siblings or Jinbei's crew.

Nami said he'd have to learn to compromise, lead,and carry the weight of the lives that sail with him, but Luffy doesn't want to.

It's the first time he realizes there are downsides to being Pirate King. The thought is sour and traitorous in his brain, but it takes root, regardless of how much he tries to shake it off.

"I know," the swordsman repeats. He places one heavy, calloused hand on Luffy's shoulder. It's all it takes for Luffy to hide under his straw hat and cry.

* * *

Marco and Luffy survive Wano, barely, but they do. As the older pirate promised himself, he's there in the name of Oden, instead of Ace, and despite his relentless fear for Luffy. The young man also incarnates his promise, wrestling probability and history into whatever he wishes it to be. The cost of life is great, and Marco wonders if Luffy thinks it's worth it. He might crumble later, in the privacy of a room Marco is no longer going to share with him. The phoenix might never know.

Right now, he looks every inch the man Marco fell in love with, withered and wrapped in bandages, but unbroken, carrying the weight of his choices. Luffy told him about his promise to Ace in the name of Sabo, always striving for a life without regrets. It's the first time since Marco's sailing with him that he remains conscious after a notable battle, and Marco has to beat down the hope rising in his chest.

He keeps close Luffy's first loss against Kaido, remembers the smell of disease on his skin, the feelings of his branded back under his fingers. Marco wants an excuse to stay. He hurts so badly that it almost drives him crazy. He cannot believe that he's walking away; what does life look like without Luffy now?

It won't go back to what it was after Punk Hazard; nothing ever will.

The dawn after the battle comes slow.

There are pirates to tie up, samurai to heal, friends to bury. Marco feels grief's frozen fingers as they squeeze the air out of him, bruising his throat in an invisible grip. He closes his eyes to center himself. He needs to leave now, when he's sure, not giving Luffy time to be less tired and more willing to fight him on it.

_You're strong, phoenix. Choose, and then stick to that choice._

Roronoa has no future as a motivational speaker, but his sparring had settled in Marco some courage. He'd needed to let go more than he thought, and the understanding of his body had been a blessing when it came down to facing off the Beast and Big Mom pirates. He'd had a score to settle with Perospero after all.

They won.

And the taste of lingering ash in his mouth confirms all of Marco's pondering fears. Whatever he wants out of his life after Punk Hazard, in love with Monkey D. Luffy or not... this, this victories in the name of ideals and dreams... this isn't what Marco wants out of life anymore. He thinks it's not what he's wanted in a long time.

Marco settled in Sphinx because his home was gone, and he'd had nowhere to turn to. Pops was gone, and his security and family, the person and place Marco had lived with for decades, had dissolved into nothing like sand between his fingers. Sphinx had been Pop's home once, and it'd made _sense._

This time though, Marco needs to make something of his own. He cannot keep looking for stability and happiness in other people, that much he's come to understand. He needs to build something for himself, within _him._ A safety and support that cannot be robbed away, that will not crumble even if the world does.

He doesn't think he explains it as well as he feels it.

"I'll make it and come back." This is what Luffy responds to his monologue. His eyes never change. They wield the same shine that landed him on Marineford and carried him forward through those lonely years in Rusukaina. The black eyes that found Marco brutalized and on the edge of death. The ones who fell in love with his raw sanity and his everlasting fire. These are the eyes that have taken care of him, that have hurt him, the same one so focused on the future they scarcely catch sight of anything else. The same determined eyes that introduce Monkey D. Luffy as the future King of Pirates. The same eyes Marco has woken up to, over and over. When he didn't know them, when he didn't want them, when he didn't need them, and when he didn't love them, but especially when he_ did_ do all those things.

Marco wants to believe him.

Maybe Luffy will bring from Laugh Tale what Marco lost. Maybe it will take the accomplishing of a pipe dream, the success of an impossible journey for Marco to learn how to trust Luffy and all he stands for.

Marco has seen the same eyes before, and they've always left him behind.

Maybe this moment is different, but it all feels the same.

Marco really hopes Luffy proves him wrong.

(Though he doesn't think it'll matter then. Is it fair for him to take Luffy only after the danger? Only when it's safe? Twenty years ago, Marco would be right there with him sailing aboard, eager to make his way around the world. It'd been dreams of adventure and courage that took Marco to the sea in the first place, but that was from a long time ago.

Now, it is Luffy's turn.

But if Luffy comes back, and he still wants Marco, Marco will be there, a House on and of his own.)

"I hope so," he says sincerely and has the grace of not noticing the tears in Luffy's eyes if only so that he can curve his own. The two of them are so different. Always have been. Transversing different paths with different dreams surrounded by different people. At this moment, Marco can admit to himself that he's loved Luffy for a long time. He also knows that if he wants to keep that feeling, if he wants to keep Luffy the man he fell in love with, Luffy needs to let him go. The other man lowers his head, his signature straw hat shadows his face, but he nods furiously.

"I will."

And who knows, the world has proven Marco wrong plenty. Every time he thought there was nothing else for him to discover, no more of him to give, Luffy found him, _saw him_, and dredged up feeling in his heart. Life and Luffy share such a trait: always surprising you and carrying you forward.

He's been home to Marco's heart and pain, witness to the worst of him. Luffy took Marco on when he was the shaky fundament to a legendary crew, a husk running on autopilot too close to resenting everything and everyone who he held dear. Took him in again when the bloodthirst and need for revenge were greater than the promise of something more, more than Luffy, despite Marco burying his feelings in him for months, broken.

He's never meant to _use _Luffy, but he has, hasn't he?

The thought makes him pause. Is that really fair?

Luffy thrusts a small purple pouch onto his hand. His eyes are glassy with tears, but he still smiles at Marco like the sun. Inside the little bag, there are seeds. It only puzzles Marco for a moment.

"Tangerine seeds?" he chokes out.

"_Nami's_ tangerine seeds, shishishi," Luffy's laughter is a little forced but no less brilliant because of it. He gives Marco a wry smile, looking older than Marco's ever seen him. In the shadow of his jaw, Marco catches a glimpse of the man he fights tirelessly to become. "For Nakama only," he adds, not letting the message be lost in subtext.

Marco's heart punches inside his chest.

Despite everything he did, Luffy still opened the doors of his heart, his body, and his home to Marco when the phoenix didn't even recognize himself (he still doesn't, but it feels like it's coming to him amidst hard conversations and sword fights and the roots of tangerine trees).

Maybe Luffy will one day tell Marco all about One Piece, and Marco will want to listen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOL is very different from what I envisioned. Longer, for sure. Sadder, as well. Surprising down to the last edit I made.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who suscribed, kudoes, or commented on this piece, it really did have a life of its own for me and it's been jarring to see it come to and, regardless of how satisfied I am with it. Like with everything else I write, I will revisit it for the last sweep of editing in a couple of months, but this story is done. J&F becomes the sole MaLu fic to hold my attention.
> 
> I couldn't have done it without your invested feelings and support, sharing what I love with you is one of my greatest joys :)
> 
> Thank you, thank you, thank you.
> 
> See you in the next one!
> 
> Much love,
> 
> Dee

**Author's Note:**

> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Slim_Deedee_)   
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